


Senpai: A Story of Good Friends ~Devas Edition~

by BossTigger



Series: The Senpaiverse [1]
Category: 1 Pound no Fukuin | One-Pound Gospel, InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, Ranma 1/2, うる星やつら | Urusei Yatsura
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comedy, High School, Multi, Original Character(s), Story Arc, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23429491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BossTigger/pseuds/BossTigger
Summary: The world has been changed forever by the invasion of the Oni aliens and the game that Moroboshi Ataru won. Living in a radically changed Nerima during an already dark period of her life Tendo Akane finds something she needed the most: A good friend. This story is a recut and expanded version of an earlier version of this story and encompasses the greatest works of Rumiko Takahashi along with a handful of OCs, please read and enjoy.
Series: The Senpaiverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685422
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Right and Wrong Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?

**Senpai: A Story of Good Friends**  
**A Ranma ½ Story**  


**|Right and Wrong Lessons|**

If there was one thing that Katie Izland didn’t like, it was a bully. Back when she was in grade school, she’d been bullied by kids in her class by the common grade school punks who spread nasty rumors, carved nasty words in their victims’ desks and dumped pencil shavings on heads.

It wasn’t a good time for her at all, especially at that point in her young life–but don’t be mistaken: while her experience wasn’t great, theirs was _awful_ when she was done with them.

A lesson Katie took from that point in her life was that when you knowingly messed with and provoked someone stronger than you and you got your ass handed to you on a silver platter for it, it was no one else’s fault but your own. If you could learn your lesson and change your ways though, you had a chance at being a better person. If you kept doing it? You were too dumb to live. It was this lesson that brought Katie to the following conclusion:

96% of Furinkan High School’s male student body were irredeemable subhumans.

It was the fourth day in a row that the American transferee had to watch a sad display of lust and desperation take place in the front yard of the school: a literal army of boys from first to third year armed with any weapon they could find was gathering in the front courtyard, waiting for a particular girl to show up so they could attack her.

There had to be nearly two hundred of them now, from every club from the kendo and boxing to the non-athletic clubs that had no actual business being out on a battlefield. All of them were there to beat her into submission–so that one of them would take her out on a date.

Setting aside how abhorrent _everything about that_ was, what made it worse was that in spite of their numbers, weapons, and lustful determination? These guys were going to get annihilated by this girl, like they had every time they went after her.

She obliterated them, not even taking so much as a graze as she ripped through them like a chainsaw through melting butter and went on her way to class–she wasn’t going to let something like a gang of would-be rapists get in her way of an education, especially if they couldn’t do jack to her. Yet in spite of that, these clowns were determined to beat that date out of her and on the fourth day of this embarrassment Katie was tired of it.

For as strong as she was, the wrecking ball of their affections was just too nice to beat them down with prejudice, and while Katie understood why she wouldn’t want to actually maim any of them perfectly, she also knew that if it didn’t get driven into the collective heads of these idiots, they would probably go at this for weeks until it just became some twisted tradition that would never stop.

She didn’t come all the way to Japan just to be stuck in a shitty school full of guys who thought beating the shit out of a girl was a great icebreaker.

So with that in mind, the tall, black haired girl with striking green eyes rolled her shoulders and began to make her through the crowd of spectating girls and somewhat smarter boys–the precious 4% who knew better–towards the front of the group of malcontents. At 180cm she was taller than nearly all of the boys, and the moody, intimidating aura of her foreignness combined with the flat, disinterested look she had on her face most of the time parted the more timid and polite of the crowd without her having to ask.

Once past the onlookers, she made a line straight for the front gate, walking along the wall until she reached it. A glance to her left allowed her to catch sight of the girl in question, a cute girl with long dark hair walking with her slightly taller, bob-cut sporting older sister. Even from this distance, she could see that the girl of the hour was looking pretty agitated.

A glance to her right saw the slavering crowd, of young men readying weapons and psyching themselves up. Today was the day, she could hear the reassuring themselves and each other: One of them would do it! One of them would beat her and get to go on a date with her and maybe even get to win her heart entirely!

Yeah right.

Katie sighed and stopped, turning to face the group of boys. Seeing her step forth, the horde grew confused and stared at her. It wasn’t like they didn’t know who she was, the foreign transfer student from America’s Pacific Northwest stood out like a sore thumb, being taller than a bunch of the boys and emanating an intimidating aura that put off even the boldest attempts to approach her. Why was she suddenly stepping up?

Speaking clearly, with a surprisingly rustic accent, she revealed her intentions.

“Howdy guys, don’t y’all think this has gone on too long?”


	2. Good Grief

**|Good Grief|**

Tendo Akane woke up as she did every day for the last three days, ready to punch every boy on Earth. Over the course of them, she had to fight almost the entire male student body of her school because that _idiot_ Kuno Tatewaki, the top student in the school, had mouthed off that only a man who could defeat her would be able to date her without getting his crap kicked in by him.

Of course, a bunch of guys who were hot for Akane literally took that as “If you can beat Akane, then she HAD to go on a date with you” and here she was, with her knuckles still kind of raw from all the punching she had to do yesterday, getting ready to work over the same crowd of idiots again just so she could go to class.

Her morning routine, once pleasant and even relaxing, was now an exercise of unbridled frustration at immature boys who would take any shortcut to get a girl to date them that didn’t involve actually talking to one.

She got dressed, knowing that these guys saw her as property to win, rather than a human being.

She ate her breakfast, accepting that these boys were content with physically harming the same person they’d want as a girlfriend.

She walked to school, understanding that if it weren’t for the fact that she was 100% straight and in love with a kind, if somewhat silly man over twice her age, she would dive into the first lesbian relationship offered to escape boys forever.

“Ugh, there they are, the idiots,” Akane seethed at the sight of the waiting crowd.

Beside her was her sister Nabiki, who totally did not resent her younger sister for turning the boys she once happily flirted with into short-sighted fools who won’t give her the time of day.

“Well, you can’t fault them for being determined.”

“Yes I can, they’re just going to keep coming, and coming, until one of them actually beats me” Akane shot back, not noticing the tall dark-haired girl who walked out in front of the crowd.

She wasn’t concerned about any boy beating her. Even holding back Akane could lay them flat with a one-by-one-hitter quitter and still be done with all of them in under two minutes. More to the point, even in the highly unlikely chance of one of those randos landing a lucky knockout blow, she wouldn’t date him at all. In fact, the moment he showed up at her figurative or literal doorstep to cash in, she’d stomp him even harder.

“Why are they even obsessed with me? It’s not like someone’s selling pictures of me to give them something to work for.”

“Oh my, someone would have to be a stone-cold money-loving bitch with a jealous streak a mile wide to be so petty,” Nabiki dryly replied.

She was selling pictures, but only to one guy; the rest just thought Akane was cute–in spite of everything.

Akane looked ahead, ready to take on the horde, and saw a situation brewing at the school’s gate.

“What’s going on there?” She asked

Up ahead, Katie was appealing to the futility of the boys’ situation, politely, carefully imploring them to back down and go home.

“It’s been three days of this and it’s pretty obvious you’re not gonna beat her, so why don’t ya’ll give it a rest?”

She was expecting a more hostile response–maybe someone calling her a filthy foreigner and telling her to mind her own business, maybe someone brusquely shoving her aside so they could get to the object of their desire. However, they all did neither; the only response she got from them was a slack-jawed stare that told her they were all having difficulty comprehending the words she said.

At the front, a boy in a karate gi was the one to finally say it.

“You want us to… stop?”

It was Katie’s turn to be confused, how could they not understand her? “Yeah, she’s not going to want to date any of you.”

“Not until we beat her!” One enterprising young man said.

“Yeah!” A few others chorused.

“No, I mean, even if you beat her-” Katie tried to emphasize, but an enterprising young boxer cut her off.

“Well, she has to, that’s what Kuno said!”

A fencer in the crowd spoke up to correct the young man. “No, no, no. If we beat her, then we have permission to ask her out, _that’s_ what Kuno said.”

The other boys quickly nodded in agreement, it wouldn’t do good to lose sight of their objective after all.

Now Katie needed a moment to process that one. “Hold on now, what?”

The boy in the gi explained the situation clearly. “You have to understand, Kuno-senpai is way stronger than all of us. If any of us tried to date Akane without his permission then he’d beat the crap out of us, and we wouldn’t stand a chance against him.”

Katie stopped for another moment, and when she spoke it was in a level but slightly enunciated tone, something dark and nasty leaking into her words.

“Correct me if I’m wrong: the reason y’all are lining up to get your shit pushed in, is because you think you have better odds of beating up _the girl y’all want to date_ than you do _Kuno?”_

There were a lot of nods from the group.

Lowering her head, Katie clenched and unclenched her fists, and took a deep, shaking breath.

**_“HEY KUNO!”_ **

Her shout came out with a force that filled the entire courtyard, making the boys in front of her jump with fright, and causing Akane and Nabiki behind her to give pause.

The crowd of boys parted like the Red Sea, Exodus style, revealing the tall and suave figure cut by one Tatewaki Kuno. He had heard the voice of a woman call him out, in a tone befitting an uneducated lout seeking challenge, and when he saw that it was the new foreign girl who’d darkened the halls of his school just days before, his intense eyes narrowed… intensely.

“Is there something that you request of the undisputed and undefeated champion of the High School Kendo circuit, I, Tatewaki Kuno?” He asked as he walked towards her, the wooden sword he carried in his right hand held low.

Katie’s voice dropped with fury and contempt as she lifted her head and stared dead straight into Kuno’s eyes, her own green orbs darkened with murderous fury. “Yeah–leave that girl and all of these guys alone, or I _will_ break your arms.”

Kuno stopped, struck by the killing intent radiating from this woman.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Did I stutter? No–I said if you don’t stop, I am going to break your arms, you son of a bitch.”

Behind Katie, Akane and Nabiki reached the edge of the foreigner’s escalating exchange with Kuno.

Akane couldn’t believe what she heard. “Nabiki, isn’t that the transfer in your class, what’s she doing?”

“She’s calling Kuno out,” Nabiki said.

Akane frowned. “Why? He’s going to beat her to a pulp…”

Nabiki pulled out a camera phone. “Don’t know, but it’s going up on the net.”

The other students couldn’t believe it either. All anyone knew about her was that she was tall, kept to herself, and was from America… what was she thinking, challenging the ace of their school?

Kuno himself puzzled over that, and even considered that same information. Where did such a presence come from, and from a foreigner no less? Those questions had simple conclusions that reassured him, as he closed his eyes and let out a smooth laugh.

“I see… as you are an American visitor, I can understand your confusion.”

Katie tensed up. “Excuse you?”

Kuno wasted no time clarifying. “What you see before you is a test of manhood, a rite of passage to earn what does not come easily! If these men cannot defeat the fair Akane, then what right do they have to date her? As her champion and true love, I stand at the gate of her virtue to strike down those who are unworthy! You can be forgiven for your ignorance of our culture and the importance of proving one’s merits.”

His collected visage morphed into a harsher scowl. “However, your insults towards my person shall not pass so easily! Apologize for your insolence!”

Katie grimaced. There was no reasoning with this idiot.

“There ain’t shit in your culture that says it’s okay for a piece of shit with a sword to start threatening people over who they can or can’t date. You’re not some shogun, you’re just some douchebag chuuni who _needs_ your arms broken, asshole.”

The other students winced, while one whistled, and another went “Oooooh…” in sympathetic fear and and anticipation

If there was one thing anyone didn’t address, it was the three hundred sixty-three kilogram gorilla in the room that was Kuno’s self-styled delusions of being a noble samurai that would be pathetic–if not for the fact that he could smash through concrete with the air displaced by a swing of a wooden sword.

Kuno scowled, incensed when that touched a nerve. A chuuni?! How dare she accuse him of being something that he was not?! “Even when shown mercy, you continue this foolishness. Well, let it be said that I, the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School, did not give you fair warning!”

“Oh no!” Akane murmured in alarm.

“Welp, she’s dead,” Nabiki quipped.

Both hands gripping his bokken, Kuno shot toward Katie, sword raised above his head. “I STRIKE!”

Akane could handle Kuno just fine, she was stronger than most nearly everyone in the school, but Kuno was still a monster. She dropped her bag aside and prepared to dive in to intercept the attack, block it, _something–_ but she was too late as a loud crack silenced the schoolyard.


	3. The Breaker

**|The Breaker|**

A well-known myth of Muay Thai is that practitioners of the sport increase the power of their devastating kicks by repeatedly kicking a sturdy tree over and over, until their legs were so strong that the tree eventually succumbed to the power of the practitioner’s mighty legs. The truth is far more mundane, with the so-called sturdy tree being the soft and malleable wood of the banana tree, which eventually evolved into the heavy kicking bags more popularly known inside the sport.

That said, with repeated kickings of a training bag, eventually through ossification repairing tiny fractures created by the impact, one’s leg bones do grow harder to break and better to break the bones of others. This was important especially in the case of Katie, who had delivered a roundhouse kick that connected her tibia into Kuno’s left arm with tremendous force.

The crack was the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School’s humerus snapping like a dry twig on impact.

Kuno didn’t get flung far, he wasn't even knocked off his feet. When he missed and she landed her kick, he just stumbled past her, his eyes wide and watering as the pain of having his arm clearly smashed to pieces registered.

Unharmed entirely in the exchange, Katie lowered her leg.

As one, the students all around her recoiled to a chorus of “EHHHH?!”

“Did… did she just break Kuno’s arm?” A disbelieving Akane asked as she stared, stunned.

Nabiki, ever the unflappable, continued to film. “Just like that this vid went from Nico straight to YouTube.”

Katie turned to Kuno, who had let go of his sword with his left hand and kept his head bowed, his well groomed bangs hiding his face.

“So, how’s that?” She asked.

“You… you…!” Kuno spat out, as he gripped his trusted bokken so tight the wood splintered.

He took a deep breath and turned around, his face streaked with tears, snot, and sweat but completely collected and composed.

“Did you think that merely crippling an arm would be enough to defeat me?” He asked coolly.

It hurt, it hurt more than anything he ever experienced, but he would not show such weakness to anyone, he was a man! A man amongst men!

Gasps and cries of amazement rose up, Kuno was showing such strength! Some boys in the kendo club, among the very same he threatened, could not help but cheer as their Captain stood fast.

Katie was unimpressed as she entered a loose fighting stance.

“No, I said I was going to break _them both.”_

Nabiki looked over to Akane. “So uh, weren’t you going to stop this?”

Akane picked up her bag as she watched the scene intently. “No, she’s got this.”

Panting loudly to maintain his front of composure, Kuno brandished his sword. “The only thing that will shatter, is your arrogance!”

He staggered towards her, each shift of his arm causing flashes of pain that blurred his vision momentarily. “I am unrivaled… undefeatable by all but whom I _allow_ to best me!”

“Whatever.” The only chance Kuno had to win, Katie thought, was if he struck after she finally rolled her eyes out of her skull.

He turned his stagger into a charge, bokken held up and behind him to attack with maximum force.

“I will not… fall this day…! I WILL DEFEAT YOU! PREPARE YOURSELF, I STRIKE!”

Katie watched his sword come down as she moved out of its path to catch him by the forearm, which she guided down, down, and down, so that her rising knee met it at the elbow. After the immediately following snap, even Nabiki winced.

Akane looked a little green in her cheeks. “Arms don’t bend that way.”

“LiveLeak here we come,” her sister said.

Katie let Kuno go, and stepped back, letting him stand there, his whole body shaking. In his agony he foamed at the mouth, trying his darndest to try to focus on his opponent and having little luck. Due to the pain he could only really do one thing at a time, and what he was trying to do now was not scream and break down crying.

Other students began to feel sorry for Kuno. Not surprisingly, most of them were from the Kendo Club, as one such young man called out to him in clear distress. “Captain! Oh no!”

Another student, a girl, called Katie out. “Y-you didn’t need to do _that_ to Kuno-senpai!”

“Nah, I _had_ to,” Katie retorted.

“Ew… he looks like he’s going to pass out standing up,” a third student called over the growing rabble.

“You… you’re going to pay for this!” Another member of the kendo club roared.

Katie snorted, and turned away from them to Akane. Facing the green-eyed surprise powerhouse, Akane jumped–uncertain what to make of the girl and her intentions.

“Hey, uh… Tendo, right?”

“Yes?”

Katie hooked a thumb at Kuno. “Too far?”

Akane stared at the foreign girl, looked at Kuno still foaming at the mouth, and then back to the girl. She did this a couple more times, contemplating her answer, before she put it succinctly.

“Not far enough.”

Katie nodded and rolled her right shoulder, to loosen what kinks still remained in it. “I thought so.”

She turned around to face her audience, ostensibly to lay down the new law as it were, but instead found herself facing Kuno in the middle of picking up his wooden sword in his teeth and standing upright. Upright, he took in a deep breath and began to scream, howling loudly as he bit down on the bokken like he was getting an amputation without anaesthetic.

**_“OHHHHHHHHHHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”_ **

Katie blinked slowly as she stared at the screaming fool. “… Uh…?”

Katie looked back to Akane and Nabiki, who were staring at this new development with matching blank expressions. “Hey, does he think he can turn super saiya-jin or something, too?”

“This one’s new, actually,” Nabiki admitted.

Hilarious, too.

“He’s trying not to give away that he’s crying. He did this when I beat him in our kendo match, too,” Akane flatly added.

**_“I! FIGHT! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!”_ **

Kuno’s passionate roar was less a hero achieving his final form, and more trying not to sound like he was bawling his eyes out like a child. The kendoists who cheered their abusive Captain on and promised revenge to Katie gaped in awe at the Kendo Club Captain’s sudden rush of determination.

“Captain… even in his state, he’s showing his true power!”

“Go Kuno-senpai!”

“Kick her butt!”

Energized by their cheers, Kuno bit down even harder on the bokken.

**_“I WILL SHOW YOU! THE TRUE POWER! OF THE PROUD! KUNO! BLOODLIIIIIINE!”_ **

Katie stared at Kuno with a mix of bemusement and disappointment.

“Okay,” she said before she spaced her feet and lowered her stance.

Digging his heels into the ground, and his teeth into his bokken, Kuno crouched and sprang forward, charging for this powerful, savage woman to plunge his bokken in her heart with the power of his love, his anger, and all of his sorrow-!

Katie’s knee collided full force with his chin, snapping the bokken, shattering his jaw, and interrupting Kuno’s dramatic internal monologue of intent.

“You know what?”

A blast of wind washed over the students behind Kuno, blowing back hair and flipping up skirts, before there was a loud bang behind them. Behind Katie, Akane gasped when she saw a huge dent appear in the face of the clock near the top of the school’s front. At that same moment, Katie ground her knee against Kuno’s ruined chin, her green eyes lit up with fury. The air was still, filled with incredible tension even after the strange impact.

_“Why don’t you just go…”_

All at once the suspended tension _snapped,_ and she unleashed it, completing the motion of her blow and launching Kuno skyward.

**_“FUCK! OFF!”_ **

The recoil of her blow caused her to perform a backflip, and Kuno–a trail of condensation rings radiating from him in his short flight–smashed into the clock at the center of the school’s tower and hitting the bell behind it with a loud, warped clang followed by an uncomfortable grinding of gears.


	4. Nuclear

**|Nuclear|**

The schoolyard was quiet again, as Katie landed on her feet and dusted off her uniform skirt. Letting her hands hang limp at her sides, she looked at the group of students staring at the hole in the building where Kuno had gone, and waited. Sure enough, one by one all eyes returned to the foreign girl who just made an embarrassment out of who had been once the undisputed lord of the school. Quiet murmurs rose.

“She… she put him through the school’s clock.”

“So powerful…”

“Is he dead?”

Everyone waited and listened. Sure enough, they could hear a high-pitched whine of pain from a man too durable to avoid being knocked unconscious, but not durable enough for when it counted.

Akane walked over to Katie, cautiously entering her field of view.

Noticing her, the taller girl turned her head to her. “Howdy.”

“You’re strong,” Akane said.

Katie shrugged her shoulders. “I’d better be, ‘else all that martial arts training was a huge waste of time and money.”

She looked back up at where Kuno’s legs dangled out of the school.

“Like with that son of a bitch; he oughta look for a refund–at least to help with the medical bills.”

Akane let out a small laugh. “Yeah.”

An epiphany struck one of the boys in the horde of Akane’s suitors.

“Wait, hang on. Does this mean we can ask Akane out on dates like normal people now? We don’t have to do this fighting thing anymore?”

Akane went stiff where she stood, her eyes wide and glassing over as fury radiated from her.

Katie shrugged her shoulders. “I guess? It’s not like he’s going to be kicking anybody’s ass anytime soon, but y’all played yourselves.”

Before any of them could ask, Akane’s sheer rage erupted into a visible blue glow, surprising Katie.

“Ask me… out? You still think-? After you-?”

Nabiki was impressed, never had she seen her little sister so angry that _sentences were a challenge._ Like a car with a popped clutch rolling down hill, though, Akane’s sputtering stopped and her anger _exploded._

**_“I’LL NEVER GO OUT WITH ANY OF YOU SICK PERVERTSS!”_ **

Just about every boy in the group lost the color on their entire bodies, turning titanium white except for a faint blue shade appearing on their foreheads and descending down their faces. Nabiki stepped back to catch everything on camera.

**_“YOU THINK THAT I’D GIVE YOU THE TIME OF DAY, WHEN I HAD TO PUT UP WITH YOU SHOUTING AT ME TO GO OUT WITH YOU, WHILE YOU WERE SWINGING FOR MY FACE?! SCREW YOU! SCREW ALL OF YOU FOR EVEN THINKING IT!”_ **

A dark cloud appeared over them, weighing down their shoulders and forcing their heads down in shame. The students not directly in the path of Akane’s verbal assault stood stock still, most of them–almost all girls–in awe of the unfathomable wrath that was pouring from the girl.

**_“YOU WEAKLINGS COULDN’T EVEN BEAT ME UP WHEN THERE WERE HUNDREDS OF YOU, WHY THE HELL WOULD I DATE ONE OF YOU?!”_ **

Katie’s mouth fell open, but she was speechless.

On the other end of the verbal assault, what had once been a fair large percentage of the male student body were now extras for a zombie apocalypse film.

**_“SO GO AND FIND SOME OTHER GIRL TO BOTHER AND LEAVE ME ALONE–OH WAIT! YOU CAN’T! BECAUSE EVERY FREAKING GIRL HERE KNOWS YOU’RE DESPERATE ENOUGH TO BEAT UP A GIRL YOU CAN’T HAVE!”_ **

It was the most powerful and devastating truth of her eruption: in their desperation to avoid Kuno’s wrath they hadn’t just poisoned the well–they contaminated the entire aquifer. All any girl saw for the last three days were hundreds of boys gathering up to beat up a girl, and that girl beat them up effortlessly. Who would date a guy like that? Who would want to go near a guy like that? Who could call themselves a man after that?

Her long, ribbon-secured hair looking more disheveled than it ever did fighting the boys, her face red, and her body covered in sweat, Akane stood there gulping down lungfuls of air as she _shook_ in her anger.

**_“Get the hell out of my sight, and if I lock eyes with any of you, I will do so much worse than what happened to Kuno!”_ **

Completely destroyed, the male students of Furinkan High School obeyed, and one by one began to listlessly walk towards the front doors of the school.

As they marched silently away, everyone could see it in their lifeless eyes: there was no hope for them, no light, not even a faint glimmer. Any and all romantic aspirations for all of them were dashed with their irrational decisions. There would never be a springtime of their high school days, or real love and companionship to look forward to.

All that was lost forever, in lieu of a dark, lonely future surrounded by plastic figurines and posters of unattainable fictional representations of women, warmed only by the light of computer generated wives programmed to worship them but feel nothing.

Akane couldn’t imagine a more fitting punishment.

Katie took a deep breath. “… Damn.”

Nabiki let out a whistle, impressed, as Akane’s anger scrammed and the meltdown was brought to an end.

“Well, you didn’t throw a punch this time but I think you neutered all of them.”

“They never had any balls to begin with,” Akane snapped back.

“Inclined to agree there,” Katie said as she dusted off her hands. “If that’s all square, I’m gonna go to class.”

As she began to walk away, however, Akane called to her. “Wait, Izurando-san!”

Katie stopped and looked back at Akane. “Yeah?”

Akane bowed deeply to the foreign transfer girl. “I’m sorry you had to be bothered, but thank you for stepping in.”

Katie waved it off. “Weren’t no thing, you’re a pretty nice girl and those boys had no business picking on you.”

She shrugged her shoulders after. “Besides, been a while since I got a chance to actually put hands on a dude in a real fight, so… I was happy to oblige.”

“A real fight? I’ve seen slaughterhouses that gave the cows better odds” Nabiki hadn’t actually, but the sheer one-sidedness of that beating warranted the comparison.

Akane was flattered by Katie’s compliment. “Oh, um… thank you for that as well, uh…”

She brightened as she seized the opportunity to learn more about the mysterious girl and that unusual attack of hers. “Do you want to have lunch together?”

Nabiki raised an eyebrow in curiosity, as Katie gave Akane a probing glance, and smiled herself.

“Sure, you don’t mind eating lunch outside, do you?

Akane shook her head. “No, that’s fine.”

Katie smiled a little broader and reached out to give Akane the V-sign. “Definitely cool. I’ll see you out under the trees then.”

Katie turned and began walking back to the school along with the rest of the dispersing students. As they watched her go, Nabiki looked over to Akane, who was happier than she’d been over the last few days, despite having just gone off.

“She’s really nice,” Akane said.

Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. “Eh, she’s all right, I guess? Let me know when a hot guy comes along.”

Akane huffed noisily at that. “A hot guy? _Here?_ If I ever meet a hot guy our age in this town, that’ll be the day I’m engaged to one!”

**|Qinghai Province, China|**

_“ACHOO!”_

The sneeze of a hot Japanese young man with brown eyes and dark hair ending in a tightly-braided pigtail, and dressed in a karate gi, made his father and their tour guide, both middle aged, follically challenged men, jump.

Sniffling loudly, Saotome Ranma brought his fingers to his nose.

“Aw geez, I hope I’m not coming down with a cold.”

“Don’t you worry, son, These springs will cure all that ails you even as we train,” his father, Saotome Genma, declared.

Ranma sniffled again and shivered. The air here was pretty chilly, for a place that was supposed to be a spring. “I hope so, it doesn't feel like no hot spring though, Pop.”

Their tour guide, stocky chinese man wearing a green uniform and matching cap, looked back at them. In stilted but comprehensible Japanese he spoke urgently.

“It not hot-spring, honored guests, it cursed spring. Very dangerous, you no want to fall in.”

Genma dismissed the tour guide’s warning like he barely understood it. “Whatever, even if they’re not hot springs. There’s nothing that a good workout won’t cure!”

Ranma had been paying more attention. “Wait, what about not falling in?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Genma insisted. “Besides, that’s the whole point of this training, you won’t fall in.”

The two of them looked ahead, at the cursed pools of the Jusenkyo Springs spread out before them. Thousands of wide pools spread out for as far as they could see in the mist-shrouded clearing in the hilly forest.

“Trust your old man, son. Nothing will go wrong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Senpaiverse. Wow, a fanfic of a thirty year old anime, I wonder how many people are gonna read this one?


	5. Under the Oak Tree

**|Under the Oak Tree|**

_Me: Okay, I did it._

_The Bae: What did you do?_

_Me: I finally kicked the shit out of that_  
 _chuuni asshole._ >:|

_The Bae: Oh shit!! =O_

_The Bae: What happened?! ?_?_

_Me: I told him to fuck off and leave that girl alone,_   
_and he didn’t fucking listen. :shrug:_

_The Bae: How bad was it?_

_Me: They’re gonna need a hose to_   
_clean him out of the clocktower stg._

_The Bae: JESUS CHRIST KATIE! =O_

_Me: What?_

_The Bae: This morning I thought I heard a_   
_church bell explode, that was you?!_

_Me: Yeah._

_The Bae: You owe me a new pair_   
_of panties. :heart_eyes:_

_Me: :smug:_

_Me: Anyway, Imma have lunch with her,_   
_so maybe send something sweet that I can share_   
_with her when you send lunch?_

_The Bae: Aw, are you finally  
making a friend?_

_Me: I hope so. She’s really cute._

_The Bae: Well, I got streaming to do!  
No more interruptions, ‘kay?_

_Me: Sorry!!! I’ll let you get back to it!_

Finishing the last message, Katie pocketed her phone and sat back against one of the tall old trees that grew on the inner yard of the school. After getting the third degree from her teacher and being swarmed by classmates asking questions, she decided she’d spend the rest of her morning classes studying outside under the clear and comfortable spring sky filled with fluffy white clouds. It was a sky worth looking at, compared to what she was used to back home.

With no bell to signal the change of periods, the wait for lunch felt longer until students began emerging from the building to find their own spots outside to enjoy their food. Not interested in more attention, Katie moved around the tree, putting it between herself and the doors.

Having escaped her own relentless Q&A session, Akane was relieved to be outside and away from her classmates, but a little anxious to sit down and have lunch with the girl who flattened Kuno. It was nice that she had met someone who was not only strong, but also intolerant of the antics that people could get up to around here–but she was from another country, and definitely different from her. Would they even get along?

There was only one way to find out, she reasoned, as she reached the old trees and stepped around the largest of them to look down at Katie. “Izurando-san?”

Katie looked up, and was relieved to find just Akane standing there. “Cool, you made it.”

Akane sat down beside her, and produced a tori bento lovingly prepared by her sister. She looked at Katie, and noticed that she didn’t seem to have her lunch. “Did you bring your lunch?”

“It’s being delivered, so don’t worry. You go on and eat up.”

Nodding, Akane opened the bento and began eating. As she took her chopsticks and began eating the delicious chicken and rice, she wasted no time. “So, if you don’t mind my asking…”

“I don’t,” Katie said as she scanned the area for signs of her arriving food.

“How long have you been training in martial arts? You definitely know some Muay Boran.”

Katie turned to look at Akane, impressed. “Not many people make that distinction.”

“Yes, I’ve seen all sorts of stuff,” Akane replied readily.

“Use it too. I think I saw six, seven different styles just from watching that fight you had yesterday. A few moves from cartoons, too, actually…”

Akane brushed it off. “Please, I could afford to use whatever came off the top of my head because they were all that weak.”

Katie chuckled; Akane’s opponents were so boring that she’d been memeing all over their faces.

“So what’s your actual forte?”

“Armed combat. That’s how all this started. I wanted to join the kendo club, but I had to show what I was capable of,” Akane explained with a show of disappointment.

She stuffed some food in her mouth and let out a frustrated hum as she chewed it.

“Had I known what I was getting into, I would’ve run out of there as fast as I could.”

“So, where would you say you and that chuuni asshole stand, skills wise?” Katie asked.

“He’s real good, he’s the strongest guy in the whole neighborhood. I beat him in the demonstration, but if he was actually trying to fight me like he wanted to win? He probably could.”

“Wait, wait, he didn’t even try?”

“He didn’t get a chance to,” Akane assured her.

Katie grimaced. He was the sort to hold back against fair maidens to demonstrate his benevolence–like a proper delusional fuckhead should.

“I see,” she said, “well, he got what he deserved if he was pulling his punches on me.”

Akane giggled. “We’ll never know, since you weren’t.”

Katie joined in with a soft, throaty chuckling. As she stopped, Akane looked up at the clocktower, and marveled at the tremendous damage. She looked down at Katie’s legs, splayed out from under her Furinkan uniform’s sky blue skirt. She couldn’t see her thighs completely, but her calves were strong with well built muscle, while her shins and knees bore long healed scars from her relentless training.

“You must be a regular battle maniac,” she conceded.

Katie confirmed it. “Yeah, my whole family are basically monsters. My Mom, my Dad, my Uncle, his wife, and their kids…”

“So who trained you?”

“My uncle. Mom and Pop thought it’d be a good hobby to keep my nose clean. So every summer he’d pick me up and we’d go to some other country and I’d spend every day there training and doing nothing else. This has been a tradition of our family since I was four.”

Akane’s eyebrows rose as she swallowed more of her food. “I’ve never met anyone else as dedicated to martial arts as I am.”

Katie was of the same thought. “Honestly, until I saw you taking names I was starting to think this place was a let down. I came here because this is the ‘Martial Arts Mecca.’”

Akane smiled. “Yeah, there’s more weirdo martial arts and the people who practice them here than anywhere else.”

“Yeah, and I want to train with and fight against _strong_ people,” Katie said brightly, “Like you! What do you say, want to train with me?”

The praise did not miss Akane, and she blushed again. Really? Someone that powerful calling _her_ strong? “I’m strong, but I’m not break a guy’s arms and then put him through a building strong.”  
  
“Sure you are, hon, you’re just too nice. You could’ve killed all of those chumps on day one if you wanted to, but you held back,” Katie said.

Akane disagreed. “I wasn’t trying to be nice to _them.”_

“Not sure where this negativity is coming from, but any girl who can single-handedly one and done a few hundred boys in under two minutes is _strong as hell.”_

Katie gently nudged her shoulder with a fist. “But hey, that says other great things about you. Like, you know, _that you’re nice.”_

Katie leaned closer to her. “And I’d rather hang with nice people.”

Akane gave her a sidelong look. “Say, if you were so quick to mess up Kuno, does that make you _not nice?”_

Katie huffed smugly. “I’m the meanest bitch you’ll ever meet.”

“I don’t know~” Akane mused. “You did help me because you think I’m nice.”

“A nice person wouldn’t let someone get jumped once.”

“You still stood up for me.”

Katie looked aside, her eyes focusing on the far wall to their left. “Honestly? I was hoping that at least one of those assholes would snap out of it and actually stand up for you first.”

She brusquely shrugged her shoulders. “But nope! I guess ganging up on the girl they want to date makes way more sense than attacking the guy who is trying to dictate who can date her.”

Akane sighed, putting it like that made all of those boys _extra_ pathetic.

“For real, I bet if even one of them stood up to Kuno instead of just blindly following the herd, you’d be eating lunch with them right now.”

Akane made a sour face. “I can’t even imagine that!”

“I reckon that’s fair.”

“I swear, I’m off boys forever,” Akane lamented.

“Don’t let a couple hundred idiots ruin all of them for you.”

“Oh I wasn’t going to; I’m done with _boys,_ I need a _man_ in my life.”

Katie bit her lower lip. “You know, I’m hard pressed to find one of those in this town, too.”

“There’s at least one,” Akane revealed.

“No shit? What’s he like?”

“A mature, reasonable adult.”

“Yeah, but is he _hot?”_

Akane giggled and looked aside. “Um~!”

Katie laughed softly at her reaction and nudged her. “Eh? Eh?”

Cheerfully smiling again, Akane nodded and took another bite of her lunch. Now that she was free of the vile horde and Kuno, everything was great and wonderful. The sun light was brighter, the birds sang sweeter, even this already delicious food was nicer.

“I really can’t thank you enough,” she said to surreptitiously change the subject from men she was into, “I don’t even know what I can do to repay you.”

Conceding from her prodding, Katie floated a suggestion as she looked back towards the wall. “We could hang out more. Have lunch? Go shopping? That training thing I floated a bit ago…?”

Akane acceded to that. “It couldn’t hurt.”

The older girl became much more alert. “My food’s here.”

“It’s here-?” Akane asked before a blue and red blur came up and over the wall, flipped, and landed in a crouch in front of them, making her jump.

It was a pretty woman their age, with long brown hair covered with a baseball cap, wearing a blue gi over a red bodysuit and sandals. In her right hand she carried a red bag that she reached into as she stood upright. “Afternoon Katie, I see you forgot to pack lunch again.”

Katie flushed. “Long night, late morning…”

Akane stared in confusion at the delivery girl, who quickly produced a container from the bag. “I know, I delivered to you guys last night too, remember?”

“Do you ever sleep?” Katie earnestly wanted to know as she took the container.

“Sleep is for the poor,” the delivery girl said before she noticed and recognized Akane. “Hey, you’re Tendo Akane, right?”

Akane was surprised that this girl recognized her. “Um… yes?”

The girl nodded respectfully. “Daikoku Kaori, big fan. Did you finally get those boys to stop?”

Akane scowled. “Well, they’ve stopped at least, and they won’t be going after me again.”

And she didn’t care a lick about what happened to them from here on.

Kaori brightened. “Great! I’m glad that’s the case. Some schools around here, the boys don’t know when to quit even if you kick them around a hundred times–there are some places I won’t even go anymore no matter how well they tip.”

“Try kicking them through a building, that seems to work,” Akane suggested.

Kaori’s eyes flew wide. “Whoa, give me the deets on that your next delivery is free–discounted fif–twenty-five percent.”

“I’ll tell you about it, It’s wild,” Katie said. “Come by at the usual time? My aunt sent a new diffuser and it’s lit.”

Kaori agreed with a nod. “I’ll bring some food and we’ll make a party of it.”

A chime from her gi prompted her to pull from it a smartphone that she looked at. “Oh, I got another delivery. Enjoy the food and see you later!”

The girl waved hastily and rushed back towards the wall, in an instant she scrambled up and vaulted over it, and she was gone. The speed and swiftness of Kaori’s ascent surprised Akane, who recognized it.

“Parkour, huh?” Akane asked. “You know a bunch of interesting people.”

“You have _no idea,”_ Katie said with a laugh as she opened her container. Inside she found some hastily assembled fried chicken sandwiches, bottled water, some tossed in baked edamame, and a note.

Opening the note, she frowned as she read it. “Oh, well, so much for hanging out with Kaori.”

Akane looked at the note. “What is it?”

“My roommate, she’s having family over and when that happens I’m usually out of the house for the night.” Katie explained as she held up the note.

“What? That’s not fair!” Akane protested.

“Eh, I have her to myself for most of the month, they’re allowed to visit from time to time,” Katie countered. “It’s no big, I’ll go get a hotel or something.”

“You could stay at my house overnight. It wouldn’t be a problem at all,” Akane offered.

It was Katie’s turn to be surprised. “Huh? That’s awfully generous of you-”

“Well, I’m really grateful for what you did. if you hadn’t, I’d probably be miserable forever,” Akane insisted, smiling kindly.

“Besides, you did say you wanted to train with me, right? And you won’t have to commute far to get to school tomorrow.”

Katie averted her eyes and took another bite out of her sandwich to distract herself from the warm and gooey feeling in her chest. This girl was so cute, there was no way she could refuse. “Well how can I say no, if you insist?”

Akane beamed. “Great! I’ll let my older sister know to prepare a little more dinner tonight!”

Katie chuckled and gave her a playful smile of her own. “Cool.”

A distance away, in the tall trees that grew in Furinkan High’s vicinity, a small shadowy figure glared darkly at the two young women smiling and eating lunch. His beady eyes burned with a vengeful fire beneath his bushy brows as he brought an older-style flip phone to his ear.

For what that awful girl did to his master, there would be no peace–only revenge.

“Kodachi-sama, it is your loyal servant, Sarugakure Sasuke-san. I have grievous news regarding your dear brother…”


	6. Peace For A Time

**|Peace For A Time|**

Tendo Nabiki shared classes with Katie, and as such she was more familiar with the transfer student than her younger sister. Or at least she thought she was. For the few days she was here, Katie was just a quiet girl who didn’t try to ingratiate herself with others, and just did her schoolwork and spoke when spoken to. Other girls were intimidated by her, the few boys interested in foreign girls were disillusioned that she wasn’t a blonde-haired bimbo with big tits like all American girls were supposed to be, and all the other guys in school were too busy trying to beat up Akane to even notice her.

Nabiki herself, being completely indomitable, wasn’t intimidated by Katie. However, living with Akane did tell her what a wild animal was when she saw it and Katie was the very picture of savagery–someone who actually liked being waist deep in a fight and knee deep in blood. She didn’t anticipate, however, for Katie to finally have enough and call Kuno out.

Nor did she expect her to be a tier above Kuno or that she’d cut straight to breaking him into pieces.

Nor did she anticipate her being friendly enough that Akane was inviting her to stay the night over at their house.

“She can’t go back to her place tonight, and since she helped out I wanted to be nice in turn,” Akane explained to Nabiki as they walked home with Katie trailing a bit behind them.

Nabiki nodded, and glanced back at Katie, who returned the look passively. Katie never actually spoke to Nabiki in class, and while she had the start of a read on the girl given how she interacted with Kuno the first couple days, she didn’t exactly know where she stood in the grand scheme. A known unknown.

Returning the brunt of her attention to her little sister, Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. “Well, don’t destroy the house with your throwdown or whatever and I don’t really care.”

“We’ll keep it in the dojo,” Akane promised.

Katie perked up. “You have a dojo?”

“Of course we do,” Akane said, like it was perfectly normal. “My Dad runs a school; that’s how I trained.”

“Runs is a very generous way to describe it nowadays,” Nabiki noted.

“Oh cool, what’s your style?” Katie asked, interested in her cosmopolitan style.

“The Tendo School of Indiscriminate Grappling,” Akane proudly revealed.

Katie never heard of anything like that. It kinda sounded like MMA. “Indiscriminate?”

Nabiki nodded. “It means exactly what it says. Use whatever however, the only thing against the rules is losing–and even _that_ is up for interpretation.”

That struck Katie with surprise. “Whoa, hold up, you actually train in something like _that?”_

“Akane does, I’m not at all about that scene,” Nabiki coolly chimed.

“Yeah, Nabiki isn’t interested in fighting,” Akane clarified.

“Still, that sounds sketchy as hell. I’d never think you to be _that_ kind of fighter.”

“Well, I don’t fight for medals.” Akane put it so bluntly, Katie’s heart skipped a beat.

“… Holy shit, hon,” Katie said in wonder, “I wish I’d met you sooner–I wouldn’t have spent the last four months bored out of my goddamn skull.”

Realizing that she wasn’t actually affronted, Akane relaxed right away again. “We’ll make up for it.”

Were Katie any less reserved she’d be bouncing with every step, eager to get to Akane’s house and spar with her new friend. Understanding Katie’s reaction, the younger Tendo sister brightened–they were going to have fun!

“You’ve been here a while,” Nabiki noticed.

“Since a little before Christmas, actually.”

Nabiki stopped and did a double take with wide eyes at Katie. “… Oh.”

Akane looked at her sister. “What?”

“Yeah, what?” Katie pressed.

Nabiki averted her eyes and coughed. “Oh, for a second that you reminded me of someone.”

She looked straight ahead contemplatively before she ultimately shrugged her shoulders. “Just my imagination running away with me.”

Katie’s eyes narrowed a bit, while Akane gave her older sister a puzzled stare.

“Good afternoon Akane, Nabiki,” a voice called from the trio’s right. Akane brightened, while Nabiki rolled her eyes.

Turning her head to the person who called out to them, Katie lifted an eyebrow.

It was a plain-looking bespectacled man somewhere in his early twenties, sweeping the front doorway of a clinic. He had short brown hair and dark brown eyes, while he was dressed in a dark gray karate gi. He was not much to Katie, but looking at Akane’s reaction to him, she quickly divined that this was the _man_ she’d been on about.

“Good afternoon, Tofu-sensei,” Akane greeted as she stopped and bowed. “How are you doing today?”

Dr. Ono Tofu was all smiles as he leaned on his broom in an informal bow of his own. “Well for once today, I’m not busy. It seems that the rush of customers I’ve had over the last couple days finally petered out.”

Nabiki was still walking, and waved over her shoulder. “I’m going on ahead, have fun.”

Akane barely paid her sister any mind, as she tried to evade the subject of Dr. Tofu’s past customers. “O-oh? That’s… well… at least you’re not swamped with work, right?”

“Yes, there’s still a lot of paperwork I’ve got to sift through. I might even need to hire an assistant soon.”

He looked over to Katie, and like he was just noticing her he gave a start. “Oh, pardon my rudeness, are you a friend of Akane’s?”

Akane was more than happy to introduce her. “Oh, this is Katie Izurando, she’s a transfer from America.”

Looking at Katie, she gestured to Dr. Tofu.

“This is Ono Tofu-sensei, he’s been our family doctor for a few years now–he’s a medical prodigy.”

“Yo,” Katie greeted, coming off a bit more standoffish than liked, given Akane’s puzzled look at her.

Dr. Tofu humbly rubbed the back of his head as he humbly played down his youthful achievement. “Now, I’m not a prodigy. Medicine’s just always been a passion of mine, so I got into it very early.”

He dropped his hand to his side and looked back and forth between the girls.

“So, on your way home from school on time, today?”

“Yes, I actually have a chance to, and Katie is coming to stay the night.”

Dr. Tofu looked back to Katie and smiled kindly. “Oh? Be on your guard, Akane’s a bit of a scrapper.”

“I’ve seen it, she’s really good,” Katie agreed, before she noticed Akane visibly flinch.

“Oh, you’re a martial artist yourself, aren’t you?” Dr. Tofu asked, as he gave Katie a proper once over.

“Guilty,” Katie freely admitted.

“Fantastic! It’ll be nice for Akane to have someone her age who can keep up with her. She can be pretty rough–I’ve been taking care of her cuts and scrapes since the first day I opened these doors.”

“I-I’ve been getting into fights less,” Akane quickly pointed out.

“Well, a fight isn’t much of one if someone is unable to hit back, right? You’ve really improved your form over the last couple of days,” he said with a wink.

Akane looked like she wanted to protest, but she stopped mid-breath and let it out as a cheerfully strained sigh. “… That’s right!”

Katie could feel the tension in the air, it was weird.

“Anyway, I should um… get home, Katie really wants to see the dojo. See you later, sensei.”

Bowing quickly as Tofu returned her goodbye, and her face a considerable shade of red, Akane turned and resumed briskly walking home; Katie waved farewell and fell into step with a teasing grin.

“He’s the _man_ you’re into, huh?”

“Yeah,” Akane admitted.

Katie glanced back and hummed. “Seems like a harmless guy, to me.”

Akane’s blush grew, it was tragically cute in Katie’s opinion.

“He’s so much better than all those stupid boys. More mature, smarter, stronger…”

Folding her hands behind her head, Katie pulled a small smirk. “… Can take a hit and not go down like a pornstar getting paid extra?”

“Yeah-”

Akane whirled upon Katie, startled. “Eh?!”

Katie broke into a laugh at Akane’s reaction, and she tried to subdue it into a giggle when she pouted at her. _“Oh no, she’s too cute!”_

Akane raised her nose and closed her eyes, which was even cuter!

“I have to remember that you’re an American, so it’s easier for you to joke like that,”

“Heheheheh… if you’re going to be this cute, then I’m going to joke like that _all_ the time,” Katie promised.

Akane whirled on her, startled once more. “Ah?! Cute?!”

Katie laughed.

**@@@@@**

Kasumi Tendo was well-used to her little sister Akane’s volatile temper, especially in the last three days. Ever since boys had begun trying to ask her out, Akane has been coming home completely steamed, slamming doors as she changed to work out her pent up frustrations in the dojo. From what Nabiki told her, the boys who were interested in her youngest sister were _really_ aggressive in their courtship, and she wasn’t used to it. Kasumi accepted it, but there was no discounting that whatever those boys were doing, it was making Akane angrier and angrier.

So it was a surprise for the mature and beautiful eldest of the Tendo sisters to find out that Akane was in a really good mood when she called her at around lunch time. There wasn’t much explained, just that Akane was bringing a friend home to sleep over, but she sounded so cheerful and excited that Kasumi was too eager to accommodate her to ask.

Since then she’d been eagerly awaiting her and Nabiki’s return, to just find out what happened, and Nabiki’s arrival home had her almost leaping from the kitchen table to greet her.

“Welcome home, Nabiki-chan,” She called to her as she made it to the kitchen doorway. “Is Akane-chan going to be home soon?”

“She’s right behind me, with her new friend. I’m going to my room to do homework. Text me when dinner’s ready, I’m going to be on my headphones.”

“A new friend?” Kasumi asked after her, pleasantly surprised.

“It’s a wild story,” Nabiki called back, and her bedroom door closed a moment later.

Puzzled but casting it aside almost simultaneously, Kasumi put on a smile again and went right to the door, just as Akane was opening it.

“Ahhh! Stop it already!” Akane whined in mock frustration as she walked in.

“But you are, and I’m going to keep saying it, A-ka-ne-ko. You’re cute! Cute, cute, cute, cute, cute.”

Akane laughed, as though Katie’s praise physically tickled her.

“You’re terrible!”

“But you can be so cute!” Kasumi called over to her.

Akane turned to her sister with her bright smile. “Don’t you start, too!”

“Welcome home, Akane-chan,” Kasumi said gently to her youngest sister.

To Katie, she introduced herself. “And welcome to our home, her new friend. I’m Kasumi.”

Katie had a hard time immediately responding, because the very sight of Tendo Kasumi had stolen her breath away.

This stunningly beautiful woman with long brown hair worn in a ponytail slung over her shoulder, looking like a perfect housewife in her dress and apron, and wearing a smile that reminded Katie of coming home from school to cookies, milk, and Disney movies… this _woman_ was Akane’s older sister?!

“Uh… hi, I’m Katie…” Katie barely managed to squeak out in a low, retreating voice.

Akane looked at Katie, curious about her reaction.

“There’s no need to be shy. Please, come in, it’s so wonderful to meet a friend of Akane-chan’s.”

The eldest of Akane’s sisters turned to walk back inside, giving her a friendly nod over her shoulder to her as she headed in. When she broke eye contact, Katie couldn’t help but scan her up and down, her pale cheeks turning a nice shade of pink, before she looked away.

Akane noticed it. “Are you okay?”

Katie quickly nodded, while putting one hand on the wall and slipping out of her shoes. “Yeah, uh… yeah‘m fine. Your sister, she’s really pretty… uh… nice… and stuff… huh?”

Akane chuckled as she recognized Katie’s expression. She so totally had a girl-crush on her older sister. This wasn’t anything new, Kasumi had this effect on a lot of girls back when she went to High School. She’d just never seen it so sudden, let alone with someone who’d been so cool a few moments ago.

“So, come on, let me show you the dojo! And we can get some training in!” Akane offered.

“Sure, that sounds good…” Katie replied, still distracted by Kasumi’s radiance.

To herself, she thought, _“Good golly molly.”_

As Kasumi went back to the kitchen to resume working on dinner, Akane led Katie down the hall adjacent to the rather spacious Tendo family’s dojo–a broad, high-ceiling building that was half the size of the main house itself. Snapping out of her Kasumi-induced daze, Katie let out an impressed whistle as she looked around.

“You could train a lot of students here,” she said as Akane went to a small closet adjacent to the door.

“We used to have a whole class, but then my mother died and Daddy lost interest in training anyone,” Akane said as she began to strip out of her uniform with her back to her.

Katie looked over, and disguised let out a hum as she the uniform came off. She was well-built, a perfect mix of strong and attractive. The firm forms of her shoulders and upper body broke upon the small of her back into the classical roundness of a woman's lower body. The skin around her hips was very plush, indented by the elastic of her girlish panties and her thighs were cute and chubby. There was a solid support beneath the soft layer, however, a subtle hint of the girl's monstrous strength. With a nod, began removing her own uniform.

As Akane slipped on her gi’s pants and went to pull on the top, she continued. “After that, the class shrank until eventually I was the only one left. I mean I tried to keep it going, but I guess I was a little too intense for them.”

“I can’t imagine that,” Katie joked as she pulled her own uniform off, revealing the skintight black and neon green compression shorts and matching camisole top she wore underneath, and produced a hair scrunchie to tie her long black hair up into a ponytail.

Akane finished tying the belt of her gi tight around her waist and turned to face Katie. By contrast, Katie's form was on full display as she neglected to turn away from her, showing off her finely muscled arms and shoulders, her flat, toned stomach and her long legs thick with muscle.

But Katie's feminine side broke through in key areas. Her sizable breasts rested almost weightlessly on her chest, and her skin clung to where her pelvic bones jut out from her broad hips, wide in comparison to her slender waist. Her body was a well-concealed vision of power under that uniform–no wonder no one saw her coming when she obliterated Kuno.

“Wow…” Akane murmured, more impressed than she’d ever thought she’d be by a girl’s body.

Katie glanced over at her and smirked. “Wow yourself, lookin’ so cute and fierce.”

Akane blushed a bit, and walked towards the center of the dojo, Katie following.

“So, how do you want this spar to go?” She asked.

“The first to fall loses?” Katie said.

Akane nodded and smiled. “Well, you asked for it.”

Rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck, Katie stood directly across from Akane as she finished her own stretching. Turning to face one another, they bowed respectfully–acknowledging the friendly terms of their spar–and assumed fighting stances.

“Ready?” Akane asked.

“Yeah, let’s dance,” Katie replied.

“Then here I come!” Akane called out as she came right at Katie with a powerful punch.

The initial attack seemed slow to Katie right up until she realized she had to do something to block or evade it. She did, bringing up her hands like a baseball catcher’s and blocking the punch, the full force pushing her back despite her braced feet.

Surprised, but undaunted, Katie vaulted right up and over Akane, twisting her body around to deliver a kick that Akane raised one arm to block–before kicking back just as Katie landed, forcing her to skip backwards from the heel aimed at her cheek.

As she escaped Akane’s reach, the older girl took advantage of hers, advancing forward with quick jabs that Akane parried and deflected, using her footwork to stay at the limit of Katie’s reach while trying to scope out an opening to break out with. Her opponent was so quick though, with barely any gap between her blows or hesitation.

“Good moves, good moves!” Katie complimented as she faked a punch again–but suddenly pivoted to use the same devastating roundhouse kick she destroyed Kuno with.

Akane was much smaller than Kuno though and she used it–ducking under it to attack. As Katie’s foot went over her, she realized that the angle was too high. Just in time, she quickly rolled back as Katie’s leg came down much faster, the impact from her axe kick causing the entire dojo to shake.

“Whoa!” Akane scrambled back onto her feet, avoiding slash-like low kicks that Katie kept her from capitalizing against with wild and unpredictable feints.

 _“Her footwork is so good… she really loves kicking…”_ She thought right before she fired off a high kick that crossed legs with Katie’s, parrying her.

When Katie was pushed back, Akane made a full rotation and fired an uppercut with her right, forcing the taller girl to somersault backwards and land a much safer distance away, bouncing from one foot to the other as she resumed her loose fighting stance.

“Very cool, that almost grazed me,” Katie teased.

Akane began to mimic Katie’s bouncing motion, she was starting to feel a rush she hadn’t since she went head on with Kuno in kendo.

“The next one should do more than that!”

“C’mon, c’mon~!” Katie invited, right before the two danced right back into it and swung at each other.

Inside the sitting room, a ~~napping~~ meditating Soun Tendo was stirred by a noise he hadn’t heard in quite a while: The muffled thumping of footsteps, jumping, and stomping, the shouts of kiais, and smacks of blows being traded. Ah, what a nostalgic sound, it took him back to happier days, before the tragedy of his wife’s passing, a dojo full of students practicing their moves, sparring, training… all under his watchful eyes.

The mustachioed head of the Tendo family opened his eyes and smiled as he brought up his hand to stroke his chin. Ah, he remembered those old days so fondly. Maybe… maybe he ought to go back to that. Round up some students, and teach the art of fighting as he’d been taught.

… Well, maybe not exactly as he’d been taught, but in a manner that wouldn’t have an angry mob knocking on his door.

An especially loud thump made Soun jump, and it was then that he finally realized that the racket wasn’t just him spacing out and reminiscing.

“Hmm?”

There was another, and now Soun was curious. An especially loud bang followed–the sound of another of Katie’s kicks barely missing its mark, followed by the thumping and shouting as Akane punished it.

Soun’s curiosity could take it no longer, and so he rose and made his way over to the dojo. He knew how his youngest daughter was when it came to training, and usually affairs such as sparring were far less violent and far more brief. As he walked down the short hallway from the main house to the dojo, he found his oldest daughter standing by the doorway, looking inside.

“Kasumi-chan, what’s that racket. Is Akane upset about something?”

Kasumi looked at him, smiling.

“Oh no, she’s sparring with a friend from school! It sounded like they were having so much fun in there, so I came to see.”

Upon reaching the doorway, he was surprised to see Akane jump off the opposite wall and swing a spinning kick straight for Katie’s head, the blow connecting with her raised arms but still having enough force behind it to lift her off her feet and slammed her into the wall with enough force to splinter the sturdy wooden planks that went halfway up its sides.

Upon landing, a horrified Akane came to a stop. “Oh! Katie, are you all right?!”

Soun was surprised himself. “Akane, what on Earth are you doing?!”

He looked at the foreign girl embedded in his wall and paled. It was an unfortunate fact that when Soun’s interest in training students began to wane, Akane attempted to pick up his slack. This led to the vast remainder of his students fleeing the dojo–or more specifically, fleeing Akane’s wrath. While the girl knew enough to hold back from killing anyone, she was just clumsy enough to break someone short of killing them.

It was one thing for local boys to taste her wrath, but a foreign guest?

Akane looked over. “Daddy? Oh, I was sparring but-”

Katie, looking none the worse for wear, pushed herself out of the indent she made in the wooden planks. “Don’t worry, I’m okay.”

Akane looked back at Katie, awash with relief. “Are you sure?”

“I can keep going if you like,” Katie insisted.

She went right back into a fighting stance and grinned.

“I’m starting to have fun, you know?”

Akane’s relief turned into the brightest smile Soun had ever seen her with, before she returned to her stance and began circling around the center of the dojo floor opposite of Katie, like binary stars around the same point.

Soun was amazed. When was the last time he’d seen Akane so thrilled?

“Are you ready to go?” Katie asked with a competitive smile.

“If you are, now I know what you can take. I’m gonna hit harder,” Akane promised.

Katie lit up with anticipation. “Show me what you got, Akaneko!”

Before Akane and Katie could throw themselves back at each other, they were interrupted–by several smoke bombs suddenly rolling across the floor around their feet and exploding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rush of updates begins now.


	7. From Where the Shadows are Born

**|From Where the Shadows are Born|**

“Ah, what the fuck?!” Katie cried out as the smoke filled her nose.

“It stinks, oh God!”

It was disgusting–a pungent stink of rotten eggs and gym socks that stuck to the smoke and making her eyes water and her gag reflex go off..

Akane covered her face in vain as the smoke passed over her, too.

Soun, just on the edge of the smoke bombs, brought the sleeve to his gi up to cover Kasumi’s face as she yelped in surprise. Fortunately for either, it didn't appear to be that strongly smelling from where they stood at all.

As the smoke billowed, the triumphant laughter of a young man filled the room, and recognition made both Akane and Katie freeze.

“K-Kuno?!” Akane gasped.

“What the…?” Katie began as she managed to open one eye and look through the blinding smoke.

What she saw sent new revulsion through her. “Are you kidding me…?”

It was the unmistakable silhouette of Kuno, with what should be a broken arm holding out a bokken at his side as his laughter calmed.

“As you can plainly see, I, Tatewaki Kuno the Invincible Blade of Furinkan High School, stand unharmed before you,” he declared, “Your flashy moves and foul demeanor, amusing as they are, were merely style to make up for substance you truly lack!”

Katie wiped her eyes again and her surprised expression turned to confusion–then into a flat glare. Kuno chuckled again and pointed his bokken at her.

“However, if you pack up your things and leave Japan immediately, to never be seen again, I will forgive you for your transgression and spare you a truly awful fate.”

He brought the wooden blade to his shoulder and laughed again.

“You must also pay a restitution fee, as well. I do not ask for much, just drop what money you have on the floor and leave at once.”

By this point the smoke had cleared enough for Akane, Katie, Kasumi, and Soun to see that “Kuno” was actually a tall bar stool wearing Kuno’s pants, with a bushy-eyebrowed, monkey-like man in a ninja gi wearing the top part of his usual attire. He also wore a wig that helped complete the illusion, and in the hand not holding the bokken he held a microphone to his mouth as he tried to emote the suaveness of Kuno and let the voice modulator do the rest.

“And Akane Tendo must go on a date with me, for allowing me to suffer such indignity, at a later date of my choosing!”

Katie walked up to the ninja and kicked the stool out from under him as he laughed again, causing him to fall flat on his face and swallow the microphone.

“Uncool, man,” she snarled.

The ninja, Sarugakure Sasuke, quickly got up–groaning from the nasty sensation of having a working microphone in his stomach. Hacking out a cough, he looked up at Katie, shocked.

“H-how did you resist my poison smoke?!” He demanded.

"Barely! That shit almost fucked up my nose you piece of shit!”

Sasuke pointed at her defiantly. “Now only begins your suffering! I will not forgive you for what you have done to my master!”

“Your Master? Wait, are you like Kuno’s ninja or something?” Katie asked.

“He is!” Akane snapped angrily.

“I don’t need your forgiveness, but hey… since you’re out of a job now, how about you work for me? I always wanted a pet ninja.”

“I AM NO ONE’S PET! ESPECIALLY NOT TO A LOOSE, LEWD WOMAN!” Sasuke roared while looking at Katie's toned body, drool running from his mouth.

He folded his arms and looked away when he realized how perverse he looked.

“I am a loyal servant to the Kuno family, and for them I would gladly lay down my life!”

He turned back to face her, more smoke bombs held between his fingers. “Now prepare for a taste of true hell-!”

A simple front kick scooped Sasuke straight up into the air, before Katie spun around and swung a high kick straight up into his stomach with such force, that there was feedback from the unseen speakers he’d used with the mic. This was followed by a muffled pop and Sasuke belching fire from the whole microphone exploding in his gut.

Akane winced from the racket, while by the door Kasumi brought her hand to her mouth as she gasped at the violence of Katie’s dispatch of the ninja.

Her leg held high, Katie balanced the folded over ninja on her heel, as she stared up at him.

Her voice seething with contempt, she spoke. “What are you, twelve? ‘A taste of true hell?’ _Get out of here with that horseshit!”_

She brought Sasuke over in an arc, and slammed him into the floor of the dojo with enough force to buckle the planks and send him straight through the bottom of the dojo and into the cold, bare dirt under the building.

As splinters rained down around the edge of the hole made in the floor, she leaned down and looked. He was still conscious, and in quite a lot of pain. Good, she wanted to make sure he understood completely how badly he fucked up.

“The hell do you think this is?” She asked the crumpled shinobi.

“Oh my…” Kasumi murmured in a slightly lower voice than usual for her.

Soun was impressed; such power, such ferocity, such brutality! His dear Akane had made a friend that shared her interests well!

Katie looked up from the hole and to Soun as she realized the damage she’d done. “Oh shoot, I’m sorry about the floor. I’ll pay for it, I promise.”

Soun brightened more. She wasn’t a cheapskate either!

“Well, as long as you’re taking responsibility, I don’t see the harm done,” he said reassuringly.

“That was great, Senpai!” Akane said eagerly as she joined her side.

Katie looked over to her. “Senpai?”

She cocked her head slightly, to look at Akane from a slight angle. “I’m not much of one…”

“Well, you took care of Kuno’s little servant pretty well.”

“I guess, but that just sounds so… I’m not used to that kind of thing…”

Katie looked back at the hole.

“Besides, I didn’t put the little guy out completely.”

Sure enough Sasuke began to haul himself out of the floor. He had an evil smile on his face, as if getting his butt kicked had been a part of his plan the whole time.

“Hmhmhm… indeed… you were clever to hold yourself back, as I expected you to,” he said like he had intended to be destroyed.

Akane looked from Sasuke to Katie. “You held back, why?”

“Because we’re being watched,” Katie revealed.

Surprised, Akane, Kasumi, and Soun look around quickly.

Sasuke cackled weakly in triumph. “That is correct! Kodachi-sama, have you seen enough?”

“Oh my yes, I certainly have,” a new voice, that of a noble young woman, answered.

Then, the entire inside of the dojo was subjected to a gentle fall of petals from the ceiling.

“Rose petals?” Akane asked.

Katie caught one that fell close to her. “They’re black.”

She felt it between her fingers; they were real too.

When she looked ahead, her eyes widened again at the sight of the woman responsible for them. The skintight green leotard told the story of her body, clinging tight to a curvaceous athletic form that burst with femininity and pent up aggression. Her face was no less impressive, she was simply beautiful–with a gorgeous complexion, accentuated with black lipstick and violet eyeliner, and her silken black hair was pulled into a side ponytail that fluttered off the right side of her head and ended past her waist.

 _“So this is the part of town where all the hot, dangerous girls live,”_ Katie immediately thought.

“Who are _you?”_ Akane asked, unnerved by the arrival of this unknown, weirdly alluring woman.

She did not hesitate to introduce herself. “I am Kuno Kodachi, sister of the man you know as Tatewaki, and mistress of this Sarugakure Sausuke here.”

She gestured to the ninja, who was still grinning maliciously at them.

Akane entered a fighting stance, as did Katie.

“So what, you want a hospital bed beside your brother? Because I’m already done with your whole family,” Katie said fiercely.

“Same here!” Akane agreed.

“Given your reactions, it is obvious to me that what my servant has described is true. You humiliated my brother, shattering his bones, his pride, and his spirit. You left him a hollow wreck of a man, who had to be carted to hospital nearly in pieces.”

Kodachi looked between the two of them, before settling on Katie and gesturing to Akane. “All because you took objection to his courtship of this homely girl?”

Akane almost lunged to start punching her bloody. “Homely?!”

Katie held her arm out, holding the firebrand back. “I shut him down because he was bullying the whole school into beating her up. Why wouldn’t I?”

Kodachi chuckled softly, darkly. “For that, I believe a fitting reward is in order, for your _selfless_ intervention at my brother’s expense.”

Sasuke laughed. He knew well of Kodachi-sama’s madness, and how deadly she could be in a battle. If that vicious beast of a woman only barely withstood his poison, then his mistress would show her what a real master of toxins was like! He clenched a fist, eager to see Kodachi’s first blow.

Katie snorted. “Oh, and what would that be?”

Kodachi, reached behind her… and produced a beautifully crafted engraved silver handheld mirror lined with black rose patterns.

“Here, a token of my gratitude. A one of a kind artisanal mirror commissioned as a gift for me for my sixteenth birthday and valued well over seven hundred thousand yen.”

Akane and Katie dropped their stances, confused at the offer of a genuine reward instead of some sinister attack. At the same time, Sasuke all but leaped out of the hole.

“WHAT?!” The ninja yelled out.

Looking at the mirror, Katie reached out with slight hesitation and took it. “Okay…?”

Kodachi continued. “I would also like to offer my sincerest apologies. My brother can be something of a boor when it comes to that which he cannot have, throwing tantrums this way and that. This treatment of you, Tendo-san, is absolutely unacceptable to the proud name of the Kuno family.”

Sasuke could not believe what he was hearing. “K-Kodachi-sama, but your brother… his love…!”

“Love? Is that what he calls his disgraceful behavior?” Kodachi asked, amused by the very notion.

Sasuke nodded. “Yes! His love for Tendo Akane burns brighter than any star, his passion is unmatched by that of a hundred men, two hundred!”

Kodachi’s gaze fell upon Sasuke, sharper than any blade, making him freeze with fear.

“A passion that can outmatch two hundred men, but cannot best _one girl?”_

Katie had to look away, to protect her eyes from that burn. “Yo…”

Akane almost felt sympathy for the little creep, when she saw Sasuke’s shattered expression. “I think putting him through the floor was nicer…”

Kodachi thrust forth her hand, pointing at Sasuke. “You let your devotion to my brother cloud your judgement on a matter as sacred as love! That fool rightfully earned his crushing defeat for his embarrassing idea of courtship, and unjustly seeking revenge upon his behalf rightfully earned you yours! OHOHOHOHOHOHO!”

Katie bit her lower lip again. _“Okay, she’s hot, crazy, and does the ojou-sama laugh. Girls in this neighborhood are amazing.”_

Honestly, how did she not stumble over this part of Nerima sooner?

A beeping from the house caught Kasumi’s attention and she brightened. Turning back to the group, she called. “Excuse me, Kodachi-san, does this mean that you’re a friend of Akane-chan’s?”

“An acquaintance, at best, but I bear no ill-will towards her.”

That pleased Kasumi immensely. “Well there’s no need to be a stranger, please sit down for dinner with us. It’s just about ready to serve.”

Akane was on the fence about this. On one hand, being friends with Kodachi didn’t seem so bad if her idea for showing apology was handing out expensive gifts and hurling abuse at people trying to mess with her. On the other, it’d give her brother an excuse to come straight to the house. On the gripping hand, Tatewaki Kuno was a broken shell of a man who could probably do little more than harmlessly, hopelessly annoy her.

Furthermore, if she was as athletic as she looked, she could probably learn a few things from her (and about her brother) and incorporate that into her style, so in case Tatewaki did come to bother her? Akane would have even less of a problem pummeling the pompous ponce.

That reconsideration tipped her hand. “Please, Kodachi-san, join us for dinner. Kasumi is a very good cook.”

Kodachi hummed dramatically. “Well, it has been some time since I’ve had a meal prepared by someone other than my servant…”

She looked down at a still disbelieving and shamed Sasuke, much as one would look upon an insect needing to be stomped on.

“And since the fool will be indisposed due to his injuries, I will gratefully take your offer.”

Akane and Katie both smiled, for different but overlapping reasons.

“Great!” Akane said happily.

“Cool,” the taller girl said with her.

Kasumi gently giggled and gestured for everyone to follow her. “Wonderful, please come to the sitting room.”

Soun couldn’t help his own smile. When did this house suddenly get so lively?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, leave a comment.


	8. Friends of the Black Rose

**|Friends of the Black Rose|**

With her headphones on, Nabiki had missed most of the racket, but still heard it. The thumping and bumping had gotten particularly loud towards the end, but since there was no screaming and shouting in the aftermath she reckoned that things went well enough and focused on the task at hand–watching the video of a fight in the dark confines of a nightclub-like setting.

While the quality of the camera was excellent, the lighting was bad and there was just too much noise from the crowd to hear what was being shouted–in English no less–between the combatants.

One was a tall girl wearing a black suit and matching tie, but any evidence of her hair’s length was tied up in a fishtail milkmaid style braid. The other was a much smaller Japanese girl, dressed in a cream-colored cocktail dress and a white fur-lined jacket, and she was swarming all over the taller girl, forcing her to turtle to defend from her incessant barrage.

She’d seen this video enough times to recognize the girl on the offensive: Shiratori Azusa, one half of the legendary figure skating duo known as the Golden Pair. Cute as a button, but a dangerous martial artist off the ice rink and on it, she was demonstrating her fantastic agility and striking skills all over the monolithic figure that, until very recently, Nabiki didn’t have a name to go with her.

A particularly violent kick collided with the tall girl’s crossed arms, and she slid backward across the flashing dance floor. Azusa didn’t let up, closing the distance in a dancing fashion to throw off where she was going to attack from while building up incredible momentum. As the taller girl’s arms came down, Azusa zigged left, and then zagged right, driving a haymaker directly into the tall girl’s cheek.

Like she’d just hit the face of a mountain, Azusa’s punch did not budge the tall girl, who stood stock still, staring back down at her before Nabiki froze the moment.

“Huh.”

The frame didn’t hold too much detail, but even in the poor light Nabiki could make out the unmoved girl’s pale, pretty face against the stage illuminating her from below. No wonder Katie didn’t talk much about herself to anyone at all until today–the girl had some baggage, and cleaning Kuno’s clock with an actual clock was going to attract trouble once word got around.

How problematic, Nabiki was going to have to stay ahead of this, if for her own comfort. Leaning back in her chair, she raised her hands above her head and stretched.

_“I should put my ear to the ground first thing tomorrow. No doubt the peanut gallery is going to be all a-twitter over Furinkan losing its shooting star…”_

She stopped, when a new implication loomed.

“Oh, _that_ is going to be a thing, too, isn’t it?”

Whatever further thoughts she had on the matter at hand were shelved, when her phone lit up with Kasumi’s text. Dinner was ready.

Leaving her room, Nabiki kept her mind on what she knew now of Katie and the impression she had when she was a mystery girl in a leaked video. The American had kept to herself enough that it really did seem out of character that she’d suddenly become a stereotypical transfer student shaking up the status quo. But it wasn’t like Nabiki had gone out of her way to talk to her, which was why this was annoying her right now.

Not that it mattered, if Katie was going to be friends with Akane, there was plenty of time to learn about her. She reached the bottom of the stairs, her mind fully made up on what to do for now.

When she entered the sitting room, that went out the window.

“ _What is she doing here_? _!”_ Nabiki thought upon seeing Kodachi at the table.

Kodachi was in the middle of speaking with her hosts. “I’ve been curious about the girl who has bewitched my brother’s heart, between the constant ravings, the poetry, the pictures, the shrine, the body pillows-”

Katie did a quick double take. “Wait, body pillows-?”

“I was beginning to wonder if you were a celebrity,” Kodachi revealed.

“Oh no, she’s just the most popular girl in school,” Kasumi praised, to Akane’s embarrassment.

“I’m not that popular…” She tried to humbly reply.

“Yes, you are,” Katie and Nabiki said in unison.

Katie looked up at her. “Oh, howdy.”

Nabiki gave a casual nod to Katie as she took her spot at the table.

Akane grumbled. “Well, I’m not popular anymore now that those idiot boys know I don’t want anything to do with them.”

Kodachi hummed. “Not a single one of them?”

Akane nodded affirmatively. “Those desperate dweebs may as well be dead to me.”

“They’re dead to pretty much every girl in the whole town after what they did,” Katie said.

Kasumi was blithe about it. “Well, I don’t really care for younger men, so it’s no loss to me.”

Katie glanced over to the eldest Tendo. “Really? W-what sort is your type?”

Put on the spot, Kasumi brought a hand to her cheek, her cheeks tinting pink. “Oh my, it’s kind of embarrassing really. It's not dinner table conversation for me.”

Kodachi was interested in this development. “So all of those young men are burakumin in the eyes of the women at the school?”

Akane nodded. “That’s about it.”

Kodachi nodded. “Fascinating, I will be visiting your school in the coming days to take a tour of this phenomena myself; would you be so generous as to show me around?”

“As long as you don’t plan on taking your brother’s place as the resident lunatic,” Akane offered.

Kodachi laughed, sending a shiver down Katie’s spine and making her thighs clench together.

“Ohohoho! Tendo-san, as a token of my forgiveness, you needn’t worry about me. I swear upon my family’s honor that I, Kodachi Kuno, will be your friend and confidante for life. I’ll do what I can to make up for my boorish buffoon of a brother.”

That had Nabiki lifting an eyebrow in surprise. “Wait, really?”

Kasumi was touched by the gesture. “That’s so kind of you!”

Akane was flattered as well. “Aw, geez, really?”

“Truly!” Kodachi said before turning to Katie. “And to you as well, Izurando-san. I don’t want any bad blood between our houses. Let us let bygones be bygones.”

Katie didn’t hesitate. “Sure, that sounds good. Long as you keep your brother out of our hair.”

“You have permission from me to deal with him as you see fit, short of actually killing him of course.”

Katie nodded. “In that case, next time I’ll break his legs.”

“That will be fine by me, but you may have to wait a while for another opportunity!” Kodachi said with another powerful laugh.

Kodachi’s generosity was unexpected, suspicious even. It was as if she was getting something pretty big out of this and Nabiki wanted to know what it was.

Soun, quite impressed by Kodachi’s vow–and seeing the possible financial benefits–was more than happy with this new development. “Akane-chan, your friend Kodachi-kun is more than welcome in our home.”

“Just so long as her brother isn’t,” Akane again affirmed.

“I’ll keep him out when you can’t,” Katie said.

“So you’ll be coming over more often too, right?”

“Whenever you need me. We’re friends right?” Katie asked.

Akane let out a small laugh, as she beamed right back at Katie. “Yeah, we are!”

She said to Kodachi. “You, too!”

Kodachi was quite taken by the happy girl’s smile, just as every other hopeless soul who saw it tended to be.

She returned it in kind. “It is an honor.”

Nabiki’s gaze darted between Akane, Katie, and Kodachi. In one day, in less than one, everything just got flipped on its head and there really was no telling what was going to happen next.

“Well, dinner was fabulous, Tendo-san, but I must be on my way,” Kodachi said as she finished her plate and rose. “I have class in the morning and homework to complete.”

She produced, from seemingly nowhere, a stack of yen and set it on the table right in front of Nabiki. “A token of appreciation and gratitude for the lovingly crafted meal.”

She bowed politely to them, before going outside. “I will see you soon, Akane-san, Izurando-san!”

Laughing that laugh Katie found so incredible, Kodachi took off into the night, leaving Nabiki staring blankly down at the stack of 100,000 yen casually tossed down by the younger of the Kuno siblings. That was 100,000 yen. Right there. In front of her eyes.

“She really is generous,” Kasumi said, surprised as well by the amount of money offered.

“I’ll say!” Soun said as he reached for it, only for Nabiki to move faster than she ever moved to snatch it up herself.

“Mine,” she said impulsively, earning pointed looks from her father, her younger sister and her beastly friend.

Recoiling, she tried to look less money grubbing and forced a crooked smile. “Er… as in… I will make sure that this is safely deposited.”

The stares cooled off, and Nabiki looked down at the tremendous amount of money with no small amount of giddiness. The status quo was gone, and there was no telling what to make of this new beginning–but it was going to be interesting.

**|Meanwhile, back in China|**

Everything went wrong.

First, in clear defiance and disregard of the warnings, Genma and Ranma leapt into action, to train atop the bamboo poles of the Jusenkyo Springs. Everything was fine and dandy, with no sign of anything going wrong–aside from the protestations of the guide–but then Ranma kicked his father into the Spring of the Drowned Panda. An apt name, because instead of his father, what emerged from it was a grizzly bear-sized and indignant panda which promptly batted Ranma straight into the Spring of the Drowned Young Girl.

As expected, Ranma emerged from the spring in the body of a short, buxom, and unbelievably cute redheaded girl.

With a scream of horror, and then of rage, father and son–rather panda and daughter–spent the next few hours with the former being chased and pummeled by the latter.

At some point during this chase, Ranma may have knocked someone else into a spring, but in her rage she did not see who or what spring they fell in. She wasn’t even sure if it actually happened, and she was angry about that, too.

Now she was a girl, her dad as a panda, she was tired, angry, hungry-

_“ACHOO!”_

-And coming down with a cold now, too. Today was the worst day ever and she was not sure how it could get worse.

“Hey, tour guide you’ve been walking us down this path for hours. How can you be sure that there’s a place that can help us here?” She asked the man.

“There place, yes. Village with ancient history! Wise, wise elders who know very much of curses, yes? You get good cure here.”

“Can I get a warm bed and a meal, too? Because I’m tired and I’m starving!” Ranma moaned, her panda dad agreeing with a growl right as a modest-sized village came into view.

“Mr. Customers, you need not worry, we is here,” the tour guide revealed. “This village of Women Warriors, they fix everything. It all be a-okay one hundred percent.”

Ranma looked with relief at the village, and sighed. Though the words weren’t exactly what he’d go for in terms of reassurance, it sounded like this nightmare was finally coming to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Ranma. Everything will be okay, surely nothing will go wrong.


	9. Vice Principal

**|Vice Principal|**

The next morning at the Tendo Dojo was a hive of activity. In the backyard of the house, an invigorated Soun was shadow boxing, and in the sitting room Nabiki watched him while she sipped a glass of juice. Kasumi was busy at work cooking for her family plus their guest, and just finishing up to her satisfaction.

“Akane-chan, Katie-chan, breakfast is almost ready!” Kasumi sang and the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs followed. “Are you ready for class?”

“We’re ready as we’ll ever be,” Akane called back as she and Katie strode into the sitting room and sat down.

Katie sat down next to Akane and ran her fingers through her long black hair, fanning it out and letting it fall against her shoulders and back. She had a restful night’s sleep on a comfortable bed roll that Akane set out next to her bed–a better sleep than she’d had for a while. “Well, I feel refreshed. How you doin’ this morning?”

Nabiki was a half-second slow to realize Katie was speaking to her and lowered her juice. “Oh? I’m okay; not really looking forward to today, though.”

Akane looked over as Kasumi came in with several covered bowls of breakfast. “What is it?”

“Well, Kuno’s gone, so the faculty is going to take control at school,” Nabiki lamented.

That puzzled Akane. “Isn’t that what’s _supposed to happen?”_

“I for one welcome anyone competent enough to do their job,” Katie added.

“And there’s the rub,” Nabiki pointed out. “These are the same guys who let Kuno have free reign of the school.”

Katie grimaced. “Yikes.”

“Can you blame them? Kuno probably threatened to challenge any of them who resisted to a duel, or something silly like that,” Akane said.

Kasumi sat down with them after setting the last of the dishes out. “Well, if Okamada-sensei is still the Vice-Principal, it should be fine shouldn’t it?”

“We have a Vice-Principal?” Akane asked, surprised.

“Yes, he was Vice-Principal when I went to Furinkan for my first year, and he was the only one who could really keep the Principal contained. By Summer break he convinced the Principal to go to Hawaii and we never saw him again.”

“How bad was he?” Katie dared to ask.

Kasumi sat still for a moment, her gaze unfocusing slightly.

Katie and Akane shared a look as a moment went by with no movement from Kasumi. Without warning, she snapped out of it.

“What’s important is that no one ever saw him again.”

Katie and Akane shared another concerned look.

“After that, school was more peaceful, but I decided to leave to devote my time here at home,” Kasumi went on like she didn’t just have a traumatic flashback.

Mulling on that as she began to fill her plate, Katie decided to sit on the brighter side of it.

“Well, as long as he’s a peaceful guy then we’ll have a peaceful time. I doubt anyone’s going to cause much trouble after yesterday, and if anyone does, I’ll handle them,” she said

 _“We’ll_ handle them,” Akane corrected.

With breakfast done, the three girls Akane, Nabiki, and Katie left the Tendo residence and headed to the school. As far as morning walks went for Akane, it was a much welcomed change of pace to be able to just walk to school and talk about something other than how frustrated she was. It had only gone on for three days, and ended just yesterday, but being able to go to school with no worries for once made it feel like it’d been weeks she’d suffered it.

“It’s so weird,” Akane said as they neared the gate.

“Having no unruly mob to greet you every morning?” Katie teased.

“Yeah,” Akane said before she looked up at the covered up clock.

Katie let out a silky chuckle. “Soon you’re gonna miss the attention, Akaneko.”

“Not likely, ever, I’m never going to miss a boy, especially any of _them.”_

“Ah, to be so young,” Nabiki said as they passed the threshold to the front yard of the school.

Barely two steps into the schoolyard, and Akane bumped into someone who walked into her path. Surprised, she pushed him back and gave a yelp when she realized it was one of the school’s male students.

“Ugh, back off!” She snapped at him.

The student stumbled back, and with a muttered “Sorry” he lumbered listlessly away from Akane–not towards the doors but towards the school’s wall. Watching the dazed boy leave, she looked back at Katie and Nabiki. They were both looking at the curious sight all around them: the schoolyard was packed with male students left and right.

There was no mistaking them, they were all the very same boys who’d aggressively lusted for Akane in the days prior, but it was clear that her explosion had an effect on them. They were all pale, almost completely colorless; it was like looking at a grayscale manga drawing compared to everything around them. They all had the same lifeless expressions, as well, and their gazes were held firmly to the ground, looking no higher than anyone’s ankles.

“Huh,” Katie said as she nudged one of the meandering boys.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he drifted away like a balloon bouncing off her.

Nabiki scratched her cheek with one finger, and pushed another of the boys, and he went stumbling in the direction he was shoved.

“Sorry,” he said, before he tripped, fell, and laid there on the ground motionless.

“Damn, I think they’re actually broken,” Katie said.

“Woe, for my ability to care is nonexistent,” Akane said with her hand dramatically upon her chest.

Nabiki nudged the prone student, and he spoke a muffled “Sorry” into the dirt. “Frankly, I’m impressed they had enough sentience to get up and come to school today.”

“They’re going through the motions … I think,” Katie said as she kept poking another boy’s cheek.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…”

“Definitely an improvement,” Katie said as she finally relented and let the young man wander off. “Though I think if they’re gonna wander around like livestock, we’d better put bells on ‘em.”

Nabiki and Akane both looked at Katie and jumped.

“They’re like ghosts, I’m looking right at them and I can barely tell they’re-” She noticed the two jump and looked back. “What-?”

She jumped back, flying to her guard, when she saw the slight, weary-looking middle-aged man in a suit standing right behind her. The man came up to Katie’s nose in height, with a wrinkled and pitted face and a severely receding hairline.

“Who…?” Katie began.

“Good morning, I am the Vice-Principal of Furinkan, Okamada-sensei,” the old man introduced himself.

This was the Vice-Principal? No wonder no one noticed him, he was the image of a man who wouldn’t be noticed unless he was standing directly in front of someone, and he was barely there now. Still, Katie bowed politely to him, Akane and Nabiki doing the same.

“Good morning, sensei,” all three said.

The Vice-Principal returned his bow. “Good morning, Akane-san, Nabiki-san, Katie-san. I hope that you are well this morning, and that you experienced no difficulty on your way to school.”

“It was the nicest walk to school I’ve had in the last couple days, everything is much quieter now,” Akane said freely. “

Katie watched a boy walk between them in a fugue and bounce off another zombie-like lad. “We’re gonna need to build a pen for all these boys, though.”

Okamada looked to his left at one of the boys, and shook his head slowly. “That is a shame. The fire of youth in their souls ran wild without forethought or reflection; it is the unfortunate state of affairs here in Nerima, that makes them like this. Before I needed to worry over a single madman–now everyone’s gone mad, and these young men paid for it by having their spirits snuffed out.”

He looked to the girls, and bowed to them deeply. “On behalf of myself and the faculty of the school, have my sincerest and humblest apologies for inaction in reining them in.”

Akane was a bit taken aback by the gesture. “Oh! Well, thank you… and just do not let it happen again.”

“Not that it can,” Katie chimed in as she envisioned where the pen to keep them would go in the courtyard.

She’d probably need a dog to help herd them.

“Yes, going forward there will be changes to how the school is administered, with steps to containing raucous behavior at the forefront. You needn’t worry anymore, it is my sworn duty now to ensure that Furinkan High School will be a paradise,” Okamada assured them.

“Good!” Akane said brightly, thankful that more change was in the wind.

“Yeah, thanks,” Katie agreed.

Nabiki just hummed and nodded.

“Now, hurry to class before the bell rings,” Okamada ordered, and the three girls turned and bolted off to the building.

Soon as they were up the stairs and through the door, he heaved a sigh and looked around at the sad mess of empty young men milling around him. He brought his right hand to his mouth, covering it, before he bowed his head and spread his palm across his face like a man in grief. It was too much, what had gone wrong?

He should’ve intervened at the first sign of trouble, and now he had this mess to contend with.

“It is no one’s fault but my own,” he said to himself. “I was too meek, slow, too com-”

He stopped himself, he was suddenly gripping his own face, like he wanted to tear it off.

“No, I am the Vice-Principal of this school.”

Okamada Kamoyo will make everything right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's hoping someone watched the live action special! Heh! Hehehe! Heh... ehh...


	10. Delinquency

**|Delinquency|**

Kuno Tatewaki, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, the Rising Star, the Hero of History, and all sorts of other titles bequeathed upon him by he himself… was not just some guy who scared people with his weird personality and the wooden sword he freely brandished at anyone who stood up to him. He was the top student of Furinkan High School, its authority that even the school’s faculty bent to without hesitation, and with his position was the ability to influence the area around Furinkan as though it were his own Kingdom–whether he was aware of it or not.

His authority didn’t just come from his strength of force and personality. Among the wealthiest families in Japan and the surrounding region, the Kuno family ranked among the top five. In the Nerima Ward, where there were effectively no rules, this was the greatest power. Strength, wealth, charisma; It was possible to get by with any one of them, but with none of them there was trouble.

Clear on the other side of Nerima, was Butsumetsu High School. An All Boys Reform School where many of the Ward’s worst delinquents wound up. Here, in spite of the school’s purpose, the delinquents were free to brawl and scrap as they saw fit, on and off the school grounds, and even during the middle of school. They were a band of brigands, and not an uncommon sight in the lawless town–motivated by an uncaring faculty and society that’d given up on most of them as failures who would never amount to anything more than violent thugs.

Their boss was the intimidating and powerful Soban. The bald, big-lipped, and burly young man of indeterminable age literally loomed large over the boys in his gang physically–but wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Soban, however, was fine with not being very sharp. He hit like a hammer, after all.

He and his gang were meeting in an empty lot on the edge of their turf with the more affluent Taian neighborhood. Rough and tumble youths who seemed to cover a wide swath of delinquent culture and stereotype, from the old schoolers like himself to the more stylishly modern looking guys. They all proudly wore the black uniforms of Butsumetsu–some had patches from past damage, others no sleeves, and others just draped the uniform jackets on their shoulders like capes as they brandished all manner of blunt instruments like weapons.

The Butsumetsu boys were squaring off against their complete opposite: A gang of a dozen immaculately dressed, well-styled, and exceptionally pretty young men from the Taian neighborhood. None wore school uniforms, but their sharp, casual clothes were on point–they looked more ready for a date than a backlot brawl.

Their leader, wearing a cream colored suit, with spiky brown hair and matching colored eyes, stepped up ahead of his stylish underlings, and sniffed dismissively towards Soban and his crew.

“I see you guys brought your tank with you, hoping to soak up some damage, hm?” The leader of the well-dressed young men, Suzuki, asked the group. “

Just beside Soban, another delinquent stepped up. Average-sized (but looking small beside Soban) and built, he had short curly black hair that gave him the nickname he went by in his gang, Curly.

At Suzuki’s taunt, he rolled his eyes.

“And here you pretty boys go, walking onto a battlefield like it’s a game. This is Butsumetsu turf, you Pick Up Martial Artists don’t belong on this side of the tracks!” The curly-haired delinquent shot back.

Suzuki scowled at the nickname. “We’re Host Club Martial Artists! Get it right you jackasses!”

Curly brought a hand to his ear. “What was that? I could’ve sworn you guys just practiced karate to impress chicks and then pump and dump ‘em when you’ve roped them in… that sounds way less stylish than a host.”

That cut too, and Suzuki assumed a fighting stance. “You’re talking mad shit for someone within ass-whooping distance.”

Curly put up his dukes, like he was ready to box against Suzuki’s more esoteric martial arts. “I could be closer.”

Suzuki sneered and his entire body flickered before reappearing halfway between where he had stood and Curly. He accelerated, remaining a blur as he closed in to shut the bad-mouthing Butsumetsu punk with a chop to his throat, but as he reached him he stopped and jumped away.

Soban, who had not been moving previously, abruptly swung at him with one of his powerful arms–the giant of a young man much faster than his size suggested.

“Shit!” Suzuki yelped as the air disturbed from the blow threw him off, and he landed several paces away from Soban and Curly with his guard up.

 _“I didn’t even see him move…”_ The handsome young man realized.

Laughing at Suzuki’s reaction, Curly folded his arms as Soban stepped up, cracking his knuckles. “This guy gets zapped by Lum Invader every other day, and even she couldn’t beat him in a straight fight! What makes you think that you’re going to stand a chance against him?!”

Suzuki adjusted his stance. “That’s a good question, but let me ask… when was the last time you fought someone other than an alien chick?!”

He vanished again and reappeared a few paces forward, to Soban’s right, striking a fabulous pose straight out of JoJo. “Dazzling!”

Flickering again, he was at Curly’s left, posed with his jacket open, its short back blowing in a nonexistent wind. “Stunning!”

Before either could move, Suzuki disappeared again and was suddenly above Soban and Curly, rose petals and sparkles surrounding him before he abruptly accelerated downward towards him. “This is a… STYLISH KICK!”

Soban swung an uppercut into Suzuki’s dive kick. Instead of shattering his leg and sending him twirling through the air, Soban’s mighty fist connected and both attacks stopped–a powerful shockwave exploding from the impact and pushing back delinquents on both sides.

Jumping back, Suzuki landed again, stunned by the sheer strength of the other student. Behind him, his gang were similarly shocked.

“Aniki’s attack was on fleek, h-how could a buffoon like that just stop it with one punch, man?!”

“That thing’s as strong a monster as it’s ugly!” Exclaimed another.

On Butsumetsu’s side, there was a mutual surprise at Suzuki’s ability to not be instantly killed by Soban’s blow.

“Eeesh, I could’ve sworn that PUMA would’ve been blown away,” one of the rowdy, rough boys said in surprised amusement.

“He’s more than just a pretty face!” Another declared.

“Good, he might hold up a bit while the boss is rearranging it!” Teased another one.

Soban shook his hand. “Hmph, that stung.”

Curly slapped the back of his hand against Soban’s side and laughed. “Geez, big guy. Way to show off!”

He turned his attention to Suzuki. “All right, the exhibition’s over. Are we going to throw down, or has it gotten into your pretty little head that your flashy moves ain’t gonna help you against our down and dirty styling?!”

The other Butsumetsu boys broke into cheers, throwing their fists into the air as they got fired up.

Sniffing arrogantly, Suzuki stood straight and brushed his fingers through his hair. Swinging his hand aside, he smirked as sparkles flew off his fingertips and masculine beauty radiated from his posed form. Behind him, the other members of his gang struck fabulous fighting poses, sparkles, bubbles and roses rising like an aura around them.

“It’s not our policy to cater to males, but we’re going to serve you up a beating straight to hell!” Suzuki promised.

The two sides, bursting with the violent energy of youth, began to fan out as they sized each other up. Strategies and tactics forming and failing on the fly, as they prepared to plunge into a melee. With the tension skyrocketing as Suzuki assumed a more conventional stance and Soban posed like a bear ready to lunge, neither side was prepared for another smaller boy from Butsumetsu to come running into the lot in a panic, flailing his arms.

“Guys! Guys!” The student, a first year, shouted as he ran straight up to Soban and his right hand man. “Boss! Curly! You guys ain’t gonna believe this!”

Curly looked over to him. “Hey, Chibi! We’re in the middle of smacking down these joke PUMAs!”

“We’re Hosts!” Suzuki angrily corrected.

“Forget about them, this is way more important! Kuno Tatewaki is in the hospital!”

Both sides immediately forgot about their confrontation and looked towards Chibi like he’d just told them the Emperor had been assassinated. Curly and Soban both fell slack-jawed, the other Butsumetsu boys shouting in disbelief around them.

On their side, Suzuki went tense with alarm while the other Host Martial Artists looked at each other nervously.

“The hell happened to the strongest guy in Furinkan?” Curly asked over the other boys in the gang clamoring for info as they gathered around, only to be held back by Soban to keep them from crowding on the smallest member of their gang.

Chibi was grateful for the gesture, and explained. “Yesterday morning, he got into a fight in the school yard, and he got _destroyed._ Just about every bone in his body’s been broken!”

One of the strongest guys in the Neirma ward… the Soaring Eagle of Furinkan High School, one of the rising stars of the Kendo Circuits. A guy whose skill with a wooden sword was enough to keep Butsumetsu away from the river that bordered their turf with the Furinkan neighborhood to the south. Kuno Tatewaki was as weird as they came for this town–but his power was recognized, respected, and feared.

Even Soban was wary of taking him on, so he wanted to know the responsible party more than anyone. “Who did it?”

Curly agreed. “Yeah, who’d he piss off?!”

Suzuki and the other Host Martial Artists came over as well. With everyone more concerned about this development, their battle could wait for later–much later if Kuno was really going to be down for the count.

“Out with it,” Suzuki said, “Who’s the guy that kicked Kuno off his throne?”

Chibi looked over at Suzuki, and stepped back to address everyone. “That’s just it! It wasn’t a guy… Kuno got his beat up by a girl!”

Silence fell, as both sides stared at Chibi like he’d abruptly grown forty feet tall. Curly recoiled a step from Chibi, before he leaned in. “What? There ain’t a girl that strong at Furinkan.”

Suzuki couldn’t believe it either. He had heard rumors of a girl in the last few days who’d gotten Kuno’s attention, but…

“There is! Two of them even!” Chibi shot back.

Confusion went right back to full-on astonishment. _Two_ super strong girls? Curly wasn’t having it. “Dude… that doesn't make sense. We would’ve heard about two girls that were strong a long time ago!”

Another boy spoke. “Yeah, that sounds like something Lum-chan, or Fujinami, or Shin-”

Everyone in both gangs lunged to silence the boy, and for good reason as Soban abruptly became more alert than he seemed even in combat just moments ago. Frozen, the boys all stared at the Butsumetsu boss, who looked around wildly, before calming back down. All of them sighed in mutual relief.

Suzuki looked back at Chibi. “Please tell me you have some details or proof, or something?”

“I can tell you what happened, from what I overheard. The guys at Furinkan were trying to go out with this girl, and she just kept beating their asses when they tried to ask her out. She won’t date anyone who can’t beat her so pretty soon the entire school got into it,” Chibi explained.

The boys began to murmur in disbelief even as Chibi continued.

“Then yesterday, Kuno himself shows up to take her on–and this other girl just steps in and nearly kills him for trying! He couldn’t even touch her!”

Astonishment petered out, turning into mild skepticism. The boys both groups looked amongst their own sides and even to the other as they tried to process that. Now Curly was flat out having a problem with the concept entirely.

“Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit on it… you got any proof at all?”

Before Chibi could offer any, Soban–who towered above his peers–pointed towards the edge of the vacant lot. “Those are Furinkan boys.”

Everyone looked over, and sure enough spotted a couple Furinkan students wandering past the chain-link fence that bordered the lot and the street. They shambled as they walked, dragging their feet and swaying back and forth limply like zombies. There wasn’t a single hint of color with them, all life and vibrance was drained from their bodies.

It was a disturbing sight for everyone to behold. “What… happened to them?”

Chibi pointed over. “That’s the worst part. After Kuno got creamed, the girl all the guys had been fighting just went _nuclear._ She screamed and howled at them... calling them weak and that she or any girl would never date them.”

Walking over to the open gate of the fence, the other boys following, Chibi grabbed one of the wandering Furinkan boys and pulled him over. Without resistance, the young man let himself be led over to the group.

“How do you think I found out? I saw these guys wandering around and I asked them what happened!”

Chibi shook the Furinkan boy. “That’s what happened yesterday, right?”

To the Hosts and Delinquents, the Furinkan student nodded. “It’s true… we screwed up… no girl will ever like us… we’re weak… we’re pathetic… we always were…”

Curly gasped as this sunk in. “Two… two girls took down Furinkan’s best fighter and chopped the balls off every other guy who could stand against them…?”

He lowered his head, and began to shake. “That… _that…”_

Looking up, there were tears in his eyes, as he broke into hysterical laughter. “ _THAT IS THE FUNNIEST SHIT I’VE EVER HEARD!”_

Chibi jumped back, as the Butsumetsu students and almost all of the Hosts joined him in laughing.

“A couple of girls!” One boy yelled, in tears.

A host was covering his eyes with his head tilted back as he guffawed. “The strongest in Furinkan couldn’t hit one girl in a straight fight. What an idiot!”

“To think we were scared of those guys! Oh no, my sides! They are achieving escape velocity!” Another Butsumetsu student howled.

Even Soban was bellowing, his hands resting on his fat stomach as he rocked back and forth trying not to double over.

Suzuki was the only one not laughing.

He had hit upon something. “Wait, wait…”

He took Chibi by the shoulders. “Let me get this straight: Kuno’s in the hospital now.”

Chibi nodded. “Yeah, it could be months before he even gets out.”

“All of the boys are like this.” Suzuki gestured to the grayscale student.

Chibi nodded again. “Yeah, just about every boy in the school. The girls want nothing to do with them.”

“And there are how many girls at Furinkan High School…?”

Chibi stopped and thought about it. “I don’t know, two hundred? Two fifty?”

Suzuki looked towards the direction of Nerima’s river, his eyes alight. _“Iiiinteresting.”_

He let Chibi go, and looked back to his gang. “Guys! We’re out of here! We’ll call this your win, Butsumetsu! But the next time you see us! We’ll be unstoppable!”

The delinquents of Butsumetsu barely had an instant to act before the rest of the Hosts quickly vacated, following Suzuki in a full sprint out of the lot and down the street. Curly, watching them go, looked over to Chibi.

“Hey… what are they in a hurry for?” He asked.

Chibi shrugged his shoulders. “Heck if I know man. That PUMA just asked me about the boys at Furinkan not being around and how many girls there… were… at… the…”

All of the other Butsumetsu students stopped laughing as Chibi trailed off.

Silence filled the air for a few moments, before again Soban was the first to say something.

“… Wait.”

Moments later, the few listless boys from Furinkan wandering the streets of the Butsumetsu neighborhood were knocked flying or trampled underfoot by a stampede of their peers from the rival school. At the front of it, Soban led the charge, while Curly held onto his back, pointing ahead.

“WE CAN’T LET THOSE DOUCHEBAGS BEAT US TO THAT TURF!” He yelled over the roaring youths behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gangs of Nerima, leave a comment.


	11. Queens of The New Age

**|Queens of the New Age|**

It was lunchtime, and again Katie and Akane were enjoying it out in the schoolyard under the trees. It was even more peaceful than yesterday, with the exception of the occasional wandering male student who quickly changed direction and walked away without a word. It was so wonderfully refreshing. If that wasn’t justice, Akane didn’t want to hear it.

“Hon, for serious, I’ll take these idiots being listless zombies over the last couple days _any day,”_ Katie said as she opened a lunchbox, compliments of Kasumi, under the same tree they met yesterday.

Akane was in full agreement. “I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy or guilt. They all made that bed and they can lie in it until it becomes their grave!”

“Damn right. Let’s not even talk about those pieces of shit,” Katie said.

With an unnoticed wince, she brought a hand to her right ear and rubbed it. “You got any plans for later today?”

“Ah? Well, nothing besides studying and training–if you want to come over for dinner again, I’m sure Kasumi would be happy to have you,” Akane offered.

Katie blushed, but it cleared up quickly as she averted her eyes. “Ah, nah. I mean… I’d like that, but I was thinkin’ we could hang out later at this karaoke place I like to hit up.”

Akane was surprised. “There’s still a karaoke bar here?!”

All of the ones she knew of closed up months ago.

Katie nodded, as she rubbed her ear again. “Yeah, it’s kind of a low-key place. Exclusive clientele, but I’m in good with the owner so we can chill there as long as we want.”

Akane couldn’t possibly say no to that, she missed Karaoke so much! “Sure, when and where?”

“I don’t know, around 20:00?” Katie asked. “I should be done with homework by then.”

“Would it be okay if I brought some of my friends?”

“Well, are they cute?” Katie asked, feigning innocence, and Akane flushed brightly.

“Of course they’re cute!”

Her friends, Sayuri and Yuka, prided themselves on being cute. Sayuri, the slightly taller of the two, her dark brown hair tied into a ponytail, let out a sneeze as she and Yuka–whose light brown hair was tied into a set of pigtails–walked towards the school gate. Yuka looked over at her friend and grinned.

“Someone’s talking about you~” The shorter girl teased.

Sayuri sniffled and shook her head. “Brrr! I hope it’s someone nice, and not one of the mobs.”

Yuka laughed. “I don’t know if they’re even capable of thinking, now. They just sit there, staring off into space.”

It was such a surreal thing, seeing the boys that had been so hot-blooded and excited only a day before being reduced to passively going through the motions–avoiding any interaction, let alone confrontation. Being Akane’s friends, they shared her strong feelings and lack of sympathy with regards to their gutted mental state. In some ways, compared to Akane, they were even more extreme about their feelings.

Sayuri paused, searching for a joke, and found one. “Bold of you to assume that the Mobs could once think.”

As Yuka laughed, and they turned to round the corner at the gate and head to a restaurant for lunch, they stopped when they found themselves face to face with a band of five boys wearing Furinkan Boys uniforms.

Right from the get go they looked like a bunch of delinquents, the tough leader with hair dyed blonde, his plain and bespectacled but dangerous-looking right hand man, the big wide tough guy who wore a baseball cap to hide his face ominously, a short cute one who was carrying a bat, and a skinny, perverted-looking one with slick hair who immediately started grinning at the two girls.

Both Sayuri and Yuka stepped back from the boys.

Just down the road from the school’s gate, Suzuki peered around the corner at the confrontation. He frowned when he saw that the students there were Furinkan guys, and not like the ones he and the rest of his crew had seen on their way here. Behind him, another of his friends, a blue-haired boy in a pink suit, tapped on his shoulder.

“Oi, why’d we stop?” The young man asked.

Suzuki looked back. “There’s some Furinkan guys over there, they don’t look like zombies.”

Turning to look back at the group of guys, he frowned. “They look like the sort who’d hang out with those Butsumetsu idiots.”

“Those guys? No way!”

Suzuki and the other Hosts turned back as one. There was Soban, Curly, Chibi, and the rest of the Butsumetsu gang gathering around them. They too were looking over at the gate, Curly scowling as he scoped them out.

“Those guys, we’ve mixed up with those Furinkan punks before,” Curly growled.

The blonde leader smirked. “Hey girls! Name’s Kodaira, but you can call me Kodaira-senpai! How’re you doin’?”

Yuka stepped a bit in front of Sayuri, who shrank back from the menacing aura radiating from the five boys.

Seeing this, Kodaira mock-pouted. “Hey, no need to be so scared. We’re just as happy to hear that asshole Kuno is gone as you are. He drove us from the school last year and said if we tried to come back he’d beat the shit outta us.”

Kodaira’s bespectacled right hand reached up and adjusted his glasses with his middle finger. “It’ll be so nice to actually sit down and continue our education.”

“They call themselves the Shining Killers,” Curly explained to the Host Club Martial Artists, “They used to run this entire end of Nerima. They’d pick fights with anybody and come back for more, win or lose!”

Suzuki looked at Curly. “We’ve never dealt with them.”

“That’s because when Kuno started high school, he drove ‘em off. It was a pretty brutal fight, too, but after that they stopped showing up at school… and all the other delinquent crews in Furinkan followed them out until he was the only one left.”

As the menacing group advanced and Sayuri and Yuka walked backwards past the gate and into the school’s front yard, Nabiki emerged from the front doors. She’d been on her own way off towards the gate to get lunch off campus–saw and recognized the young men and walked towards them with an annoyed expression. In her right hand, she one-hand texted on her phone, sending the message and pocketing the device as she reached them.

“Hey, Kodaira!” She called out.

Sayuri and Yuka both looked back, and immediately retreated behind Nabiki.

Kodaira looked at her and smiled. “Tendo! It’s been a while!”

There was no mistaking the emotion behind the smile to the two younger girls, Kodaira didn’t like Nabiki very much. In fact, going by the smiles that the others didn’t have, none of them liked her.

“Yeah, you guys were expelled, what are all of you doing here?” She asked.

Suzuki did a double-take upon sight of Nabiki, walking up to those demons without a care. “Who is _that?”_

Curly was also interested. “Never seen her, but she is _fine.”_

Kodaira laughed at Nabiki’s assertion. “We weren’t expelled. It’s not on our records. We’re still Furinkan students.”

He gestured to his glasses wearing friend. “Right, Matsunaga?”

“That’s right, the only person who said we couldn’t come here is Kuno,” the other young man said.

Nabiki expected this, but not that it’d start the very next day. Oh well. “So you’re going to waltz in and go back to all the crap that got Kuno after you? That’s phenomenally stupid.”

What was phenomenally stupid to Kodaira was that Nabiki would have that kind of cheek. “Huh? Don’t make me slap the taste out of your mouth, bitch.”

“That’ll only make it worse,” Nabiki assured him.

“You’re _gonna_ make it worse if you don’t shut up,” Kodaira threatened as he got up in Nabiki’s face, fist clenched.

At the corner Suzuki grabbed the wall so hard that the concrete wall cracked under his grip, as he prepared to fling himself down the street and kick a hole through Kodaira’s head. “That bastard better not-!”

“Hey!”

Kodaira paused, and looked a little to his left. He goggled at the sight of Akane and Katie walking over.

Akane was cracking her knuckles and looking fearsomely at Kodaira directly, as she approached.

“Back off from my sister and my friends, jerk!” She shouted angrily.

Akane didn’t ping to Kodaira at all, actually. He was stuck trying to comprehend the biggest schoolgirl he’d ever seen in his life–easily as tall as Kuno, who was tall among Furinkan students. The rest of his gang turned their attention to the two girls as well, with Matsunaga immediately recognizing Akane where his leader did not.

When the two girls stepped out past the wall and in view of the spectators in the back, further shock radiated through the Hosts and through the Butsumetsu gang.

Suzuki was especially stunned. “That… that girl…!”

Curly’s jaw dropped. He’d never seen such a cute girl before. “What the hell? Since when did this school have such babes?!”

Soban shrugged his shoulders. He’d seen better.

Chibi was the only other one not immediately bowled over by Akane. “… That’s… that’s her! _THAT’S HER!”_

Curly, Soban, and Suzuki all looked down at Chibi.

“Who?” Soban asked.

“That’s the girl that’s been kicking the shit out of the guys here,” Matsunaga warned Kodaira.

Kodaira did a double-take. “Wait, this little firecracker is your sister, Tendo?”

Chibi, trembling, pointed at Katie. “… And her… the huge one…”

“Yeah, and the human skyscraper with her is why you’re stupid ass is sauntering in here,” Nabiki said.

Katie snorted. “Skyscraper, really?”

She rolled her shoulders and punched her palm, the crack carrying across the schoolyard. _“I’m a goddamn_ _mountain.”_

Nabiki shrugged her shoulder. “My mistake, forgive me.”

Kodaira forgot all about slapping Nabiki.“Hey girls, the name’s Kodaira. Me and my pals Matsunaga.”

The glasses boy adjusted his glasses and nodded.

“Fukiage.”

The leering skinny boy licked his lips as he eyed Katie’s long legs.

“Okubo.”

The large young man–even taller than Katie–radiated his menacing aura more powerfully.

“And Nakamura.”

The small cute one waved.

“We’re taking over this school,” Kodaira said with a bright, bloodthirsty grin.

Akane stared at the five boys, looked at Katie, and then back at them. “I’m Tendo Akane, I’ve beaten up Kuno before.”

Katie scratched the side of her nose. “I’m Katie Izland.”

Hooking her thumb back, she indicated the school behind her. “I’m the one who put Kuno through the clock. You guys really need to rethink this whole thing.”

Curly followed where Katie was pointing, and stared at the top of the school. “Uh… what happened to the clocktower?”

Chibi gulped as he trembled, as though if he spoke too loud Katie would hear it. “Kuno… the clocktower got wrecked from his body going through it.”

Suzuki snapped out of his pretty girl-induced haze like ice-water had been poured down his pants.

He did a double-take and looked at Chibi. “Wait… she did that to him?!”

Kodaira laughed. “All right, gimme a second to think it over-”

He abruptly attacked, rushing straight for Akane and throwing a punch that she quickly blocked. Just as quickly, he unleashed a combination of jabs and hooks that were faster than the first blow, but Akane was just as quick to defend against before he lashed out with a surprise kick that she hopped back from.

As Akane hopped from side to side and opened up space between her and Kodaira, Matsunaga boldly attacked Katie, ducking over the right hand swipe she lashed out at him with and spin-kicking her face. Katie bobbed and weaved from the kick, and traded a quick salvo of blows that left Matsunaga pulling back from her to avoid her long reach.

“Nice moves, Akane-chan!” Kodaira teased as he advanced upon her, keeping her on the defensive with one missed punch, and then another.

Akane deflected a blow with the back of her hand, before a blow caught her across her face. Spinning around with the blow, she hopped over him and kicked off his back, sending him stumbling forward. “Gah!”

“I don’t need praise from a weakling,” Akane snapped back.

When she landed, she heard the sound of a stick rushing through the air, and twisted her body around to avoid a nunchaku wielded by Fukiage. Whirling around the weapon while moving quickly himself, the slight young man attempted to bury Akane in unpredictable strikes, the nunchaku closing in on her from random angles.

“Ohhhh!” Cheers went up among the Butsumetsu gang.

“Look at those moves!” Curly said as Akane bobbed and danced around Fukiage and Katie moved and traded blocked blows with Matsunaga in almost movie-esque choreography.

“They’re martial artists, both of ‘em!” Another boy realized.

“Geez, she fights like Fujinami, but she’s cute like Shin-!” The same boy from before was abruptly silenced by the other boys, and the Hosts too.

Fukiage’s tactic almost worked, as Akane prioritized blocking and deflecting the nunchaku. The second he tried to mix it up and catch her knee with a low kick, though, she stepped inside him and hooked her leg around his. “Huh?!”

With what amounted to a nudge visually to Nabiki, Sayuri, and Yuka, Akane took Fukiage’s leg from under him and palm thrust him in the chest, sending him tumbling end over end halfway across the schoolyard.

Akane brought her arm back and up, blocking the kick Kodaira aimed at the side of her head. Turning around, she deflected away from her face two more quick jabs before punching him in the chest, palm-striking his chin to lift him off his feet, and somersaulting to kick him through the air in an arc to crash down at the base of a tree.

A Butsumetsu delinquent clapped his hands over his cheeks. “DID SHE JUST DO THAT?!”

Suzuki’s jaw fell. “I-incredible!”

Katie parried more of Matsunaga’s blows. Since she had such a reach over him, he was fighting more aggressively, getting inside her reach and forcing her to defend more than she could attack. He was also really quick, liking to get out of the way of her strikes like a blur and trying to hit at her back and sides.

She was more than up for turning to meet the swift strikes with an upraised arm or a leg, but from what he could see? She was a fortress and nothing else. “Ha! Let me guess, Kuno walked right into your hits, right?”

“Actually, he did,” Katie said as Matsunaga suddenly slid to her right again and forced her to block a punch with her elbow.

There was a method to the young man’s madness, as he hopped back from Katie’s counterattack, and then swerved in from her left this time. As long as he was in front of her, Nakamura could come up on her from behind and put that bat to good use.

“He was a total idiot,” Katie said as she slapped down several more punches and parried away a kick Matsunaga tried to put into her side.

Crossing her arms she blocked the roundhouse kick he fired into her gut, and raised them higher to block a higher kick for her face.

“Just swing stick and win, that’s all he knew what to do, and it was good enough for you.”

Matsunaga snorted. “Yeah, that was a year ago for us. We’ve improved since then, got our game together, trained like animals…”

At that moment, Nakamura struck, leaping to swing his bat into the back of Katie’s head and put her down for the count. This was where he excelled, removing his presence and diminishing it to nothing. Not even the girls watching the fight, with a complete view of it, had noticed that he was moving at all.

With zero presence it was no problem for him to swing and miss Katie’s head entirely when she ducked down.

“… And developed tactics for-” Matsunaga’s sly one liner for after Katie’s imminent doming was cut short by Nakamura overshooting and driving the bat into his mouth with the same kind of force reserved for shattering concrete.

Nakamura, hanging in the air, gasped in surprise. “W-what the-?!”

He landed, and looked back and up to see Katie towering over him. “You shouldn’t be able to-!”

Katie kicked the runt square in the crotch, lifting him off his feet before spinning around and high kicking him into the tree Kodaira lay under.

“Don’t tell me what I’m able to do,” Katie flatly said.

She turned and looked down at Matsunaga, now rolling around with his hands over his mouth, crying.

“Definitely uncool.”

Suzuki blinked once, and realized something had happened. “Wait, where’d that runt with the bat come from?”

Curly frowned. Even from here, he hadn’t been paying attention to the little guy setting up the ambush until it failed and the tall girl attacked him.

Playing it back in his head, he realized something was way off about that. “… Jeez… does she have eyes on the back of her head or something?”

Fukiage got up, coughing, and recovered his breath. Kodaira was getting up as well, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. Looking at the nunchaku-wielder, and then turning towards Kodaira, Akane sighed in annoyance and assumed a fighting stance. At the very least they weren’t done after one, but she did not feel like giving them the credit.

“You couldn’t stop and ask around? ‘Hey, what happened to Kuno?’ You would’ve learned a lot about the situation here before you came out here to get your butts kicked,” Nabiki offered from the sidelines as she filmed the fight with her phone.

Kodaira snorted, and grinned. “The truth is? We heard some girls had beaten Kuno and most of the boys in the school, and thought he might’ve fallen off. We were going to come in, put you bitches in your places, and then enjoy a nice hot long summer.”

“This piece of shit,” Katie muttered as she walked over and joined Akane’s side.

“And now that you know how bad the situation you’re in is?” Nabiki asked.

“Well, we’re going to fight like men, and pull out a miracle!” Kodaira said as he reached behind him and discreetly pulled out not a miracle, but a knife. Fukiage, who was whirling his nunchaku around like the Bruce Lee reject he wished he was, sidestepped to just behind his leader.

“A knife!” Soban said in alarm.

Taking the knife in both hands swiftly, Kodaira ran straight for Katie low and fast, with every intention of plunging it into her gut. Seeing the glint of the blade, Katie realized that this idiot was actually coming after her with killing intent… and a severe case of tunnel vision.

Just as he reached her, Kodaira thrust the blade forward and narrowly missed as Katie sidestepped the attack by stepping to her right. Behind him, as if he were in his bosses shadow, Fukiage leaped with the clubs of both nunchaku held in his hands, to swing them down on Katie’s head. Katie brought up her left arm and lunged–catching Fukiage across the stomach with a lariat so hard it knocked the wind from him and made him drop the nunchaku.

Just behind her, at the exact same moment, Akane grabbed Kodaira by his right arm at the end of his overextended stab, and disarmed him of his knife with a vengeance, breaking bones in his hand and causing him to yell in pain. As Katie spun around with Fukiage still folded over her arm, Akane swung Kodaira around and threw him at Katie. In turn, Katie threw Fukiage–and the two young men collided with bone-crunching violence and collapsed to the ground in a heap.

Sayuri and Yuka winced.

The spectators outside the gate fell silent.

Nabiki kept filming, as Katie walked over and placed her foot on Kodaira’s back. He let out a weak, agonized moan.

“It’ll be a miracle if any of you walk away from here,” Katie said as Akane joined her side.

Both girls, with only a few scuffs and bruises for their trouble, turned and looked over at the intimidatingly large form of Okubo, who still stood silently poised to attack. Okubo continued to radiate menace, face hidden by his hat as he gazed down upon the two as well as Nabiki, Sayuri, and Yuka.

The second Akane took a step towards him, he raised his head up, revealing a fresh and youthful face that was sweating profusely as he lifted his hands up in surrender.

“Whoa, wait, I don’t wanna fight. I’m just here to be big and look mean,” he quickly said.

Katie sighed in exasperation and nodded off to the side. “Get the hell out here then, man.”

“And don’t let us see you around here ever again!” Akane threatened.

“Yeah, I’m out! Peace!” Okubo said as he turned and fled straight down the empty street.

“Little bitch,” Katie muttered before she realized that it just meant one less problem to cut into their lunch time.

“Ah well.”

She looked over at Akane, and nudged her with her elbow. “Good shit, girl.”

Akane looked up at Katie and smiled, before Sayuri and Yuka ran up to them. “Akane! Izurando-san!”

“Hey, are you all right?” Akane asked them as Nabiki took her time to bring up the rear.

“We’re fine,” Yuka said, “But that was amazing! You walked all over them!”

Akane dismissed her own feat. “They were no worse than the idiot boys I fought before.”

Katie agreed. “Yeah, if Kuno could handle them, they weren’t going to do shit to us.”

Nabiki reached them. “Yeah, but Kuno didn’t style on them like you did. He actually took a few solid hits before he managed to bring them down.”

“That’s _Kuno’s_ damage,” Katie simply replied and Akane, Sayuri, and Yuka giggled.

“Still though, there aren’t more of those dumbasses out there, are there?”

Nabiki would know, and she provided the answer. “Yeah, there are. Last year Furinkan was full of idiots like them when me and Kuno started our first year. He single-handedly drove them all out, either by beating them senseless or being crazier than they could stand.”

“Oh shoot, he was actually good for something?” Katie asked sarcastically. “Not a problem, any of those fuckers come around here, I'll give ‘em even more a reason to take their home-schooling like some good proper pieces of shit.”

“I’m with you on that!” Akane agreed.

Nabiki folded her arms. “Word’s getting ‘round that you toppled the king, and if these idiots thought we were an easy mark, imagine who else is watching the throne.”

Katie shrugged her shoulders. “As long as they ain’t boring, they can be as dumb as they want. I’m down for any ol’ rodeo.”

Akane turned to Sayuri and Yuka, herself determined and a little excited about the prospect of keeping them and the rest of the school safe from weirdos and creeps. “Don’t worry at all, Furinkan will be a nice school to go to when we’re done with it.”

“With you protecting us, it will be,” Yuka said.

Sayuri wholeheartedly agreed. “We’ll support you and Katie-senpai one billion percent!”

Katie smiled. “How about showing your support by joining Akaneko and I for karaoke tonight? I happen to know a place that’s still open on this side of town.”

Both girls stopped, before Sayuri gasped. “There’s still a karaoke bar around here?!”

“Yes! Of course we’ll go!” Yuka agreed.

A karaoke bar being still around in Nerima was news to Nabiki, too. “Hey, I want in on this.”

Katie shrugged her shoulders. “Sure; long as you keep it on the low. The owner doesn’t want everyone hearing about it, she caters to a very small clientele and would like to keep it that way.”

She looked to Sayuri and Yuka. “Same goes for you, too. Keep it a secret, okay?”

Both Sayuri and Yuka nodded. “Of course.”

Nabiki likewise complied. “I’ll sing in a closet to a smartphone if it means I have one less reason to put up with those condescending jerks in Japan for affordable karaoke.”

“I promise it’ll be a little more tolerable than that,” Katie assured her.

Sayuri looked at her watch. “Oh no! We gotta get our lunch, fast!”

She and Yuka both bolted out of the gates, the latter waving back at them. “We’ll see you tonight! Text us the details, Akane!”

“Sure thing!” Akane said.

Nabiki left to follow after the girls. “I’ll be there, of course. Thanks for sorting this whole thing out, by the way.”

“It’s cool,” Katie said, although Akane responded with a little more surprise.

“Oh, um… you’re welcome, Nabiki.”

As Nabiki walked away and fell out of earshot, Katie looked over at Akane.

Curious about her reaction, she asked. “What?”

Akane looked back up at Katie, as they turned and went back to the tree they hung out under. “Nabiki doesn’t normally show her gratitude, it was just a little nice to hear.”

Katie found that interesting, and maybe a useful insight to the character of the middle Tendo. “Huh… hmm…”

Reaching up again, Katie dug into her ear and grunted in annoyance. “Gh… God damn it…”

“What is it?” Akane asked.

Walking past Nakamura’s discarded baseball bat, Katie abruptly acted–kicking the bat up into the air, catching it, and whipping it into the sky. Akane looked up in surprise, just in time to see the bat crash into a quadrotor drone that exploded with an electrical pop as its batteries detonated.

“That,” she said as they watched the remains of the drone plummet from the sky.

Akane’s hands went to her hips. “Was that called for?”

“Maybe, the damn thing’s been pointing a camera at us this entire time.”

Akane did a double-take towards the drone again. “Wait, really?”

Katie looked back down the empty street, where the Butsumetsu gang and their Host Martial Artist rivals had been gawking. “They weren’t the only ones peeking us out.”

**@@@@@**

Okubo had made it to the corner when he had been grabbed and dragged into an alleyway by no less than a dozen young men. Hustled into a corner, he pressed himself against it in fear as he looked up at Soban–who was still wider and over a head taller than his own considerable size. In front of him, Suzuki and Curly stood together, the former wiping his hands off in preparation for getting them dirty, while the former cleared his throat.

“All right, Okubo-chan,” Curly said pleasantly, as he and Suzuki stepped closer to him.

“We want… _the details.”_


	12. Special Administrative District

**|Special Administration District|**

Just about two kilometers away from Furinkan High School later that evening, on a quiet street corner on the southern edge of Nerima, Nabiki, Akane, and Akane’s friends Sayuri and Yuka followed the elder Tendo’s phone-provided route guidance to their destination. It was taking them very close to what was the Nerima ward’s main rail line.

“This place is all the way out here, huh?” Nabiki asked as she watched the distance to their destination shrink on her phone.

“We’re gonna hit the wall soon.”

Sayuri and Yuka both walked closer to Akane, Yuka looking more nervous of the two as she scanned the dark street for any potential danger.

“I’ve never actually been out this late at night since it got put up,” she admitted.

“Me neither,” Sayuri said.

“That makes three of us,” Akane said. Unlike her friends she was relatively unconcerned by what could be lurking.

“It’s so quiet,” Yuka said sheepishly.

Nabiki closed her eyes for a moment as she hummed in appreciation of the ambient peace. “It’s kind of nice, don’t you think?”

Yuka couldn’t see it that way. “It’s creepy.”

Sayuri agreed. “This town is always so noisy and hectic during the day, there’s always some kind of chaos or a fight going on. At night though…? You can hear yourself think.”

Nabiki looked back, a smirk on her lips. “It’s quieter at night because even the ugliest, meanest delinquents know better than to be caught out at night by the Yakuza that are taking over.”

Yuka and Sayuri both jumped. “Y-Yakuza?!”

Akane scowled at her sister. “Come on, Nabiki, don’t scare them!”

“I’m just joking! There’s no Yakuza here,” Nabiki fake-reassured them, before she said with a grin. “There’s so much worse.”

She looked down the street–Akane, Sayuri, and Yuka’s gazes following–to a huge, dark shape looming in the night. It was a fence-protected, razor-wire topped wall over five meters high that abruptly ended the thoroughfare. It was a relatively new feature, barely six months old, but its dramatic impact was felt on everyone living on the side they stood on. This was the new and permanent border between the city of Tokyo, Japan, and the Special Administrative District Nerima.

_“And they locked all of us in with them.”_

Akane brushed it off, puffing out her chest to calm her friends down. “I can handle any creep that comes our way. I’ve proven that much over the last couple of days.”

Without looking up from her phone Nabiki smartly stepped one pace over to her left, and Akane’s declaration was tested by a young man in a white t-shirt with short red sleeves and blue pants stepping solidly inside of her personal space and placing his hands on her hips.

“Hey cutie~! Why don’t you and I go someplace a little more romantic-?”

Akane promptly drove a palm thrust into his face, sending him flying back the way he came and into a concrete telephone pole, cracking it.

Vindicated, she proudly turned to Yuka and Sayuri. “See?”

The young man was already on his feet right behind her–chatting up Nabiki. “We could see a movie, hit up a late night restaurant?”

Akane performed an about face. “WHAT.”

“I hear there’s a secret karaoke place around here we can team up to find it together… and get up to discovering other secrets~”

Nabiki, still looking at her phone, withheld her disappointed reaction to what he just said. “Depends–are you buying if there is such a place?”

The young man was affronted by the idea. “Of course! What kind of man would I be if I didn’t pay?!”

“A common one,” Nabiki replied, before this bold suitor took her hand in his.

When she looked up at his face, his dark brown eyes shimmering with earnest ardor met hers and a gentle breeze caught his unruly hair and sideburns.

“I can assure you,” he said before pulling Nabiki into an even closer embrace, “That I am the rarest man you will ever meet.”

Akane’s fist collided with the man’s cheek, Nabiki watching–like in slow motion–the man’s face warped from the force of the blow before his entire body followed the direction of the hit and he went crashing into the side of the building just beyond the telephone pole he went into the first time.

“Don’t touch her,” Akane said in a voice stilled by her anger.

“Who is that?” Sayuri asked.

Nabiki looked at the pit his body made into the wall. “Wrong tense.”

“He’s still moving…!” Yuka pointed out as she cowered behind Akane.

“He _is_ a rare one,” Nabiki said as the man hauled himself up to his feet again and rubbed the side of his face.

“Atcha-cha-cha-cha…” He grimaced and shook it off. “Wow… that… that…”

He moved, quick as lightning, right back up to Akane with a big smile on his face, startling her.

“Holy heck, baby! You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever seen!” He said excitedly.

“E-eh? Wha-?!” Akane now did not know what was happening.

He stepped back holding up his hands to frame her face between them. “You’re almost as strong as you’re pretty!”

Who was this shockingly durable guy, who seemed dead set on flirting with her and Nabiki?

“And you keep pretty company, too!” He winked towards Sayuri and Yuka.

Okay, flirting with her and apparently every girl in his line of sight?!

Wait.

An aggressive, indestructible flirt?

Akane went pale with realization. “No way… you’re…!”

Her voice was drowned out by a much louder voice–a high, angry voice shrieking from above.

**_“DARLING!!!”_ **

The sky lit up, and the young man was struck by lightning as if God Himself had a look at the scene unfolding and decided “Nah.”

Akane, Sayuri, Yuka, and Nabiki looked up to the source of the heavenly smite. Floating down from the sky was exactly the person Akane expected with her realization–a stunningly pretty slender but curvaceous girl with long and flowing iridescent hair and turquoise eyes, wearing only a skimpy black-striped yellow bikini and boots that matched up with the small yellow horns sticking from her head.

“Lum Invader,” Akane said before looking down at the blackened young man with smoke rising from his body.

“Then this must be Moroboshi Ataru.”

“What a time to be starstruck, huh?” Nabiki asked before she looked from her phone and around.

It looked like they were here, but she didn’t see anything that looked like a Karaoke Bar. Just a shuttered clothing store on one corner, a boarded up sake bar on another, an empty lot on a third, and an low-income apartment on the one directly in front of them.

Lum floated over Ataru’s twitching body, her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “Is that where you’ve been running off to? Sneaking halfway around town to pick up girls?!”

She fired another zap, but Ataru quickly scrambled back. “Hey! Hey! Knock it off!”

Nabiki wasn’t wrong, it was a surprise to see the most notorious couple in Nerima, if not the entire world, violently bickering in front of Akane. Lum Invader, a beautiful alien whose race had come to claim Earth for their own; and Moroboshi Ataru, the young man who won Earth’s survival and Lum as his fiancée.

 _“I just wanted to go sing some karaoke,”_ Akane thought.

Struck by a bolt of electricity, Ataru stumbled back and sat squarely on his backside, smoke rising from his body. “Gah! Lum! C-Can’t you calm down for just a second?!”

“Calm down?! The moment I take my eyes off you, you’re drooling over some other girl!”

Ataru gestured to Akane and Nabiki. “Can you blame me when they look like that?!”

Nabiki smirked. “Right line, wrong time.”

Indeed, Lum zapped him again.

“Gyah!”

With the cessation of the zap, Ataru got up. “I didn’t just come out here to chase after girls!”

Lum put her hands on her hips. “Oh? And what were you here for, hm?!”

Ataru grimaced, and looked away. “I can’t say.”

“You can’t, now?! You’d better tell me, or else!” Lum demanded as she began to crackle with power.

Ataru threw up his hands. “Or else what, you’ll zap me again?! Oh gee, like I haven’t had enough of that already!”

To answer his question, Lum zapped him, she zapped him with a flare of frustration and jealousy so bright that it irritated the eyes of those who looked upon it, and the crackle from the attack was more like a thunderous roar. Finishing the zap, Lum huffed as Ataru wobbled where he stood.

“I hope I never get into a relationship like this,” Akane said over the sound of high voltage electricity.

Nabiki shrugged her shoulders as she began to film it. “I don’t know, he’s got some moves.”

“And some nerve,” Sayuri said.

Yuka was not impressed. “He’s disgusting.”

As Ataru buckled to his knees and then fell forward on his hands, Lum turned around to face the Tendo sisters and their entourage. Electricity still crackled across her body as she stared in particular at Akane. This girl… she could see why Ataru would go after her, and that made her blood boil more.

“Who are you? What are you to my Darling?!” She demanded.

Akane recoiled a bit, was this actually happening?

Sayuri spoke up for her. “We were just going over to a classmate’s house to study, when this guy came and started hitting on us.”

Nabiki nodded. “Yes, he said something about looking for a secret karaoke bar.”

Lum whirled upon Ataru. “A karaoke bar?!”

Pushing himself back up onto his knees, Ataru grimaced. Just like that, ratted out. Oh well, he couldn’t be mad at such well-made cuties.

He looked up at Lum and shouted at her. “Well the last cheap one in town closed because you destroyed all its equipment!”

Lum wasn’t having that. “Because you were in it kissing on some girls!”

“No, I was trying to get away from you, you annoying harpy!” Ataru snapped back at her.

He had indeed been trying to get away from her, it wasn’t his fault there just happened to be two really pretty girls singing in the booth he hid in.

“H-Harpy?!” Now thunder rumbled in the air above Lum as she looked down upon her fiancé.

Before she could truly call down the thunder on him again, though, Katie’s voice rose above the din.

“Hey, what’s all this noise about?”

The four girls, Lum, and Ataru looked over to see Katie standing in front of the doorway to the low-income apartment, wearing a green hoodie and sweatpants. She looked like she had just gotten out of a shower.

Akane brightened and went to her, Sayuri and Yuka following. “Senpai!”

“Howdy, Akaneko,” Katie said before looking at Lum. “Can I help you…?”

Ataru took Katie’s hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing it. “You can help me, gorgeous. It is not often that a beautiful woman of your height and stature comes to this part of Tokyo, much less to live. Tell me, are you a model? An actress?”

Katie slowly pulled her hand away from Ataru, slowly. “Don’t touch me.”

As if he was going to agree to that! He lunged and grabbed Katie around the waist with one arm, while putting his other around Akane. “Baby there’s so much of you both to touch, though, I can’t abide by that!”

Katie and Akane responded in the same way, with cold, stony expressions as they looked past the shoulders of the boy rubbing himself against them while he hugged them tight.

Nabiki pulled Sayuri and Yuka both back. “We don’t want to be in the splash zone.”

Lum was confused. “Splash-?”

Neither she nor Sayuri and Yuka actually saw what happened in detail. It was all a blur–one instant Ataru was grinding on them like they paid him, and the very next instant his body was a projectile, hurtling in a high arc towards the nearby Shakuji River. The force of the combined blows Akane and Katie had driven into him pushed the three other girls and the alien princess backward.

They all turned and looked in the direction Ataru went, and saw a plume of water rise from the river.

Nabiki was so glad she’d filmed that.

“They’re so strong…” Sayuri whispered.

Yuka gulped, her face bright red. “It’s… it’s kinda scary.”

Lum was also very impressed. “That’s the furthest I’ve seen anyone launch Darling.”

Katie lowered her leg. “Darling? Wait… that was…?”

“Moroboshi Ataru,” Akane confirmed.

Katie looked back towards where they’d fired Ataru. “Shoot, I heard stories about that creep, but… _Jesus.”_

“It’s hard to imagine that he’s the one who saved the world, isn’t it?” Nabiki asked.

Katie scoffed. “Honestly? Yeah.”

“You too?” Akane asked.

“Saved the world and made Nerima the way it is today,” a new voice called.

From out of the apartment building emerged a tall, robust, older Eastern European woman. She looked to be in her late 30s, but her long stark white hair trailing down to her waist and the long, heavy-looking cane with an ornate, leather-bound handle she leaned on hinted at her being much older. The woman wore a thick gray wool turtleneck sweater with braided patterns down its front, back, and sleeves, and a long, flowing black skirt.

Before anyone could ask, the woman introduced herself. “Good evening, I am the landlord of this apartment, Rozhdestvensky Anya. Could someone tell me why this засранец and his сука are raising a fuss around here?”

Lum looked over at the woman, curious by the strange words she suddenly injected into her speech. “Excuse me?”

Katie bowed to her. “Sorry Sasha, that weirdo was terrorizing my friends.”

Akane glanced at Katie, and back at the woman. Didn’t she say Anya?

Lum frowned. “Darling does that to every girl he meets. He’s an unapologetic flirt!”

“Touching a girl who wants none of that goes well past the line of flirt,” Katie noted.

Sayuri snapped at Lum. “Yeah! Control your man before he actually hurts someone!”

Lum recoiled, offended. “You think I like that he does it?!”

“Well whatever you’re doing isn’t working!” Akane harshly spat back.

“How can you even like that freak?!” Yuka demanded.

Katie nodded. “Asking the real questions, here.”

Lum began huffing in frustration. “I don’t need to answer why I love him to a bunch of slutty girls who walk the streets at night!”

Sayuri, Yuka, and Akane recoiled, before Akane’s face became a furious red. “You are the last bitch on Earth who has the right to call _anyone_ a slut!”

“Bitch?!” Lum shouted as electricity crackled around her.

Nabiki whistled, she expected a lot of things tonight, but this was not one of them. Nor could she conceive it being this exciting to watch.

“The biggest bitch, if a horny pervert like _that_ would go after any other girl but you!” Akane railed back.

Lum’s mouth fell agape, and the electricity around her surged.

**“ENOUGH!”**

The warring girls fell silent, with Anya’s bellow.

The old woman raised her cane and pointed it at Lum’s face. “You. Leave this place and fish your aberration of a fiancé from the river before he does us all a favor and drowns.”

She pointed the cane at Katie’s face next. “If these friends of yours are going to raise hell like this, then they can go back to where they came from. I will not have them in my building.”

Akane’s anger retreated, Sayuri and Yuka’s following.

Katie immediately bowed her head in apology. “I’m sorry; they’re good people, I swear.”

Akane, Sayuri, and Yuka bowed more deeply. “Please forgive us for our improper behavior!”

Anya set down her cane and leaned onto it. “Much better. Nice to know that some sensible decency still exists in this neighborhood.”

Lum, still smarting from the insults, scowled at Akane and offered no apologies. Instead she stuck her tongue out at Akane and flew off to go recover her betrothed.

Nabiki, who literally did nothing wrong, finally stopped filming. “For a second there, I thought you were actually going to fight.”

“Like there would be one,” Akane said arrogantly.

Nabiki agreed. “Oh yeah, what with her being able to fly and shoot electricity.”

Blanching, Akane realized that in her anger she very nearly played herself. Recognizing her expression, Nabiki smiled.

“It’s a rare thing in this town to realize how badly you almost messed up.”

“Ease up on her, now,” Katie advised Nabiki before she nodded to Anya. “Thanks for intervening, we’re all a bunch of hot-blooded bitches, so…”

Anya laughed. “It was nothing! Relax, I was a hot-blooded bitch too in my day.”

“We only wanted to come out to do some karaoke,” Yuka lamented.

“Yeah, then that weirdo barged in…”

Katie frowned. “You still want to do karaoke, right?”

“Of course!” Akane, Sayuri, and Yuka said as one.

Katie brightened, and looked to Anya. “How about it, can they?”

Anya hummed for dramatic effect, before she gestured for them to follow her back into the apartment building. “да, come this way.”

The mood lifted immediately.

“Wait.” Akane realized something. “Senpai, is the secret karaoke bar here where you live?”

Katie looked back and brought a finger to her lips to hush her, Sayuri, and Yuka. Passing through the security door and into the main lobby of the apartment, a cramped, stale, and bare floored room with only a stairwell directly ahead and two doors on either wall at the corner. Going to the room to the left, Anya smiled back at them and opened the door.

What awaited them was an entirely different room and atmosphere. A large bar lit with green, pink, purple, and blue neon lights greeted them, across from the bar directly were arcade cabinets with customers sitting at them playing various games. Beyond the bar and the arcade were two dozen tables with almost half of them occupied, and just beyond that was a single stage where a group of middle-aged men were belting out karaoke for the crowd.

“Welcome to ‘The Secret’,” Anya greeted the awed girls as they beheld the lively and active karaoke bar. “A little place that only friends know of.”

Nabiki stepped forward, a smile spreading across her lips. “Wow… this… this is the swankiest karaoke bar I’ve ever seen.”

“Look, there are private rooms and everything!” Yuka said when she saw a kiosk to rent keys.

“Oh my gosh, it has a café, too!” Sayuri said excitedly.

Most of all, however, it was noisy and alive–everything that it wasn’t from the dirty, dingy façade outside.

Akane looked to Anya. “Is… is the reason it’s secret really because of the aliens?”

“No, it’s a secret because everyone needs a place where they can be their true selves. What better place to be free of the expectations and burdens of society, than one that only you know?”

Anya leaned on her cane, and gestured to the spread with her free hand. “Even in this town, where we are free to do as we please.”

Reaching into her pocket, she produced a handful of dull gold tokens, and handed them to Katie. “You may use any unoccupied private booth to have your fun. Drinks and food is on me tonight.”

Katie nodded to Anya as she took the tokens.

“Thank you so much!” Akane said as she bowed politely to Anya. Sayuri and Yuka followed suit, while Nabiki merely tilted her head in a nod.

Anya noticed this, and smirked in Nabiki’s direction, before patting Katie on the head. “It’s nothing; I was quite surprised to hear that this black dog had made some friends worth bringing around here.”

Chuckling, Katie put an arm around Akane’s shoulders and led her to the private booths. “C’mon, I gotta show you my playlist.”

As Nabiki brought up the rear, though, Anya called after her. “You there, bob-cut.”

Turning around, Nabiki faced her. “Hm?”

“You don’t bend much, do you?” Anya asked.

Nabiki tilted her head to emphasize her smarm. “I’m not the type.”

Amused, Anya nodded. “Forgive my rudeness for the nickname. Tendo, да?”

“Nabiki,” she introduced herself.

“Enjoy all the amenities my establishment can afford you,” Anya said with a more respectful bow, “And do not hesitate to call if there’s anything you need that it cannot get you.”

Nodding again, Nabiki headed off to catch up with her sister and the others.

As Nabiki left, Anya went to sit at one of the tables and enjoy the drunk karaoke on the main stage, three middle aged men slurring their way through a song of roaring dreams. Sitting down, she thought of the girls who had gone off to similarly sing their hearts to the world behind closed doors. Such interesting girls–with the courage to get in the face of gods, the strength to send men flying, and the nerve to merely tilt their head to kings.

“Hot-blooded bitches indeed,” she said with an amused laugh, “There may be hope yet for this worthless generation.”

**|To the Winner…|**

This nightmare was never going to end.

The whole reason Ranma even went on this trip was so that he could test his skills honed through his incredible aptitude for the craft. What better place to go than the ancient and hallowed home of martial arts as the world popularly knows them? What better time than when the whole country is a seething powder keg of warlords, monsters, and magic? Up until the moment he was cursed to become a girl, Ranma was actually onboard with this trip.

Now she wasn’t going to ask how it could get worse, because she knew that it was just _going to._

Per the Jusenkyo Guide’s advice, they had gone to the village of Nyuchiezu or Joketsuzoku or whatever to find a cure for their curses. When they got there, however, no one was around, because the whole town had dropped everything to watch the town’s warriors–almost all of them women–slug it out for a feast fit for a champion.

A feast that Ranma and Genma both consumed the majority by the time the tournament’s winner–a violet-haired curvy cutie named Xian Pu–finished mopping the floor with the entire bracket. She was understandably unhappy with it, but Ranma in all of her young wisdom had a foolproof plan: she would beat Xian Pu and then the food would be hers anyway.

Aside from the protests of the Jusenkyo Guide, it was a perfect plan with no drawbacks.

“Keep in mind that this is still _your_ fault!” Ranma sharply whispered to her father as they hid in the hold of a boat transporting cargo down a river.

Genma, snorted and grunted with a cuttingly smug look on his dumb Panda face. As if one mistake a couple missteps by Ranma outweighed the utter catastrophe of decision making that was her Father.

Ranma would punch him, but not making too much noise was important. “Of course you don’t care, I’m the one she wants to kill.”

Like panda father, like daughter! Ranma’s half-listening to their guide led to her being marked for death by Xian Pu after effortlessly beating her–something having to do with village law regarding outsiders.

In the days since, the young warrior woman has been relentlessly tracking and attacking Ranma on sight, leading to their current predicament: They had managed to lose her and sneak onto a boat heading to Shanghai. Though Ranma was confident that once they left Qinghai Province even that crazy girl would leave them be.

“Now I can’t get cured until the heat dies down! What am I gonna do until then? I can’t go out in public if all it takes are a few drops of water to turn me from a dude into a chick.”

Genma shrugged his shoulders, and raised a sign up. On it, it read, “I’ve been thinking we should scrub this training journey altogether and head back.”

Ranma read it, and her eyes flew wide. “We are _not_ leaving here until I’m cured!”

Genma flipped the sign around. “That girl’s dead set on hunting you down, we may as well cut our losses and go back. We’ll figure out something there.”

“No, we can’t,” Ranma insisted, “The cure is back at Jusenkyo!”

Genma flipped the sign over again. “Oh, and you’re fine with being attacked every step of the way by that madwoman?”

Ranma stopped and stared at the sign. “Wait, how are you doing that…?”

She stopped, and then got in her father’s face. “Over my dead body are we going back to Japan like this!”

With a quick swipe, Genma slapped his son-turned-daughter with the sign and she went tumbling across the cargo hold with a bang loud enough to startle the helmsman at the wheelhouse of the boat.

Rubbing her face, Ranma got up and faced Genma, ready to hasten the extinction of the species he now represented.

“You…!” She snarled.

Genma flipped the sign around. “Oh, and what do you intend to do, fight that girl to the death?”

Ranma grimaced at the thought. When Xian Pu first came after her, following her vow of death, Ranma expected to swat her down again and be on her way. Turns out that fighting a girl after she spent hours fighting different opponents was entirely different from a girl with a good night’s sleep and _killing intent._

“I’ll think of something!” Ranma said.

Again, Genma twirled his sign. “Let’s think of something from the safety of our home. I happen to know someone whose place we can crash at until we’re sure the girl gives up.”

“You’re not listening!” Ranma shouted, surprising the helmsman of the ship again. “We might not be able to ever come back here! Then what?! You’re perfectly fine being a panda, but I’m a guy! A freakin’ guy! Do you have any idea how messed up having a body like this is?!”

The helmsman, now concerned that he had stowaways on his boat, reached for his radio to contact the Army. He stopped, however, when he saw something strange on the river in front of the boat.

Genma flipped his sign around. “You think I like being a Panda? All they do is eat, sleep, and shit.”

“I don’t see how that’s any different from how you live, fatass,” Ranma said, and she ducked the sign when Genma threw it at her.

Up on her feet, she began hopping from one to the other as Genma rose to his, assuming a fighting stance. “All right then, let’s settle this right here! If I beat the crap out of you, we’re finding a way back to Jusenkyo!”

Staring at the thing moving on the river, the helmsman’s eyes widened when he realized it was a girl running across the water with her arms held out and behind her. As he began to make out her violet hair and particular style of clothes, the helmsman flew into a panic when he realized it was a warrior from Nyucheizu skimming the water towards his boat like an anti-ship missile.

Genma produced another sign–bewildering Ranma with where he was getting them. On it, it said: “And when I beat you into the keel of this boat, we’re going back to Japan!”

Incensed, Ranma stopped bouncing and got ready to fight. “Come at me, Po!”

At that precise moment, Xian Pu reached the side of the boat, ran up its hull and sprang into the air above it. Hanging in the air, she raised the weapon she carried–a massive hammer–and swung it to spin down towards the boat. Coming down, she used the spin to slam the hammer down on the boat square amidships.

Hundreds of yards away, on the shore of the river, a large black wolf raised its head and looked out towards the boat it had been trailing for some time now–just in time to see it break in two as a huge geyser rose from its middle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... good luck, Ranma?


End file.
